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I   § 


HISTORY 


OF 


LOUISIANA 


THE  FRENCH  DOMINATION. 


CHARLES      GAYARR6 


VOL.  I. 


REDFIELD 

110  AND   112  NASSAU   STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


1854. 

133183 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  voar  1S54 

BY  CHAKLES  GAYAERE. 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


53    VE3EY    STREET, 


v, 


'T' 

I 

CONTENTS 


FIRST   SERIES. 


FIRST  LECTURE. 

Pago 

Primitive  State  of  the  Country — Expedition  of  De  Soto  in  1539 — His 
Death — Discovery  of  the  Mississippi  in  1673,  by  Father  Marquette 
and  Joliet — They  are  followed  in  1682  by  La  Salle  and  the  Chevalier 
de  Tonti — Assassination  of  La  Salle,  .  .  .  ...  9 


SECOND   LECTURE. 

Arrival  of  Iberville  and  Bienville — Settlement  of  a  French  Colony  in 
Louisiana — Sauvolle,  first  Governor — Events  and  Characters  in 
Louisiana,  or  connected  with  that  Colony,  from  La  Salle's  Death,  in 
1687,  to  1701, 30 


THIRD  LECTURE. 

Situation  of  the  Colony  from  1701  to  1712 — The  Petticoat  Insurrection 
— History  and  Death  of  Iberville — Bienville,  the  second  Governor  of 
Louisiana — History  of  Anthony  Crozat,  the  great  Banker — Conces- 
sion of  Louisiana  to  him, 79 


FOURTH  LECTURE. 

Lamothe  Cadillac,  Governor  of  Louisiana — Situation  of  the  Colony  in 
1713 — Feud  between  Cadillac  and  Bienville — Character  of  Riche- 
bourg — First  Expedition  against  the  Natchez — De  1'Epinay  suc- 
ceeds Cadillac — The  Curate  de  la  Vente — Expedition  of  St.  Denis 
to  Mexico — His  Adventures — Jallot,  the  Surgeon — In  1717  Crozat 
gives  up  his  Charter — His  Death, 115 


CONTENTS. 


SECOND  SERIES. 


FIRST   LECTURE. 

Pag« 

Creation  of  a  Royal  Bank  and  of  the  Mississippi  Company — Effects  pro- 
duced in  France  by  those  Institutions — Wild  Hopes  entertained  from 
the  Colonization  of  Louisiana — Its  twofold  and  opposite  Description 
— History  of  Law  from  his  Birth  to  his  Death,  .  .  .  .191 


SECOND  LECTURE. 

Bienville  appointed  Governor  of  Louisiana  for  the  second  time,  in  the 
place  of  L'Epinay — Foundation  of  New  Orleans — Expedition  of  St. 
Denis,  Beaulieu,  and  others  to  Mexico — Adventures  of  St.  Denis — 
Land  Concessions — Slave-trade — Taking  of  Pensacola  by  the  French 
— The  Spaniards  retake  it,  and  besiege  Dauphine  Island — Pensacola 
again  taken  by  the  French — Situation  of  the  Country  as  described 
by  Bienville — The  Chevalier  des  Grieux  and  Manon  Lescaut — Chan- 
ges  in  the  Organization  of  the  Judiciary — Edict  in  Relation  to  Com- 
merce — Adventures  of  the  Princess  Charlotte  of  Brunswick,  of  Belle- 
isle,  and  others — Seat  of  Government  transferred  to  New  Orleans 
—Other  Facts  and  Events  from  1718  to  1722,  .... 


THIRD   LECTURE. 

Origin,  Customs,  Manners,  Traditions,  and  Laws  of  the  Natchez — De- 
cline of  that  Tribe— Number  and  Power  of  the  Choctawsand  Chick- 
asaws .286 


FOURTH   LECTURE. 

Transfer  of  the  Seat  of  Government  to  New  Orleans — Its  Population 
and  Appearance  in  1724— Boisbriant,  Governor  ad  interim— Black 
Code— Expulsion  of  the  Jews— Catholic  Religion  to  be  the  sole  Re- 
ligion of  the  Land — Perier  appointed  Governor — League  of  all  the 
Officers  of  Government  against  De  la  Chaise,  the  King's  Commis- 


CONTENTS.  V 

Page 

sary — He  triumphs  over  them  all — Republicanism  of  the  Colonies — 
The  Ursuline  Nuns  and  the  Jesuits — Public  Improvements  made  or 
contemplated  by  Governor  Perier — Census  in  1727 — Expenses  of 
the  Colonial  Administration — Edict  of  Henry  the  Second  against 
Unmarried  Women— Other  Facts  and  Events  from  1723  to  1727— 
Traditions  on  the  Music  heard  at  the  mouth  of  Pascagoula  River, 
and  on  the  Date-tree  at  the  corner  of  Dauphine  and  Orleans  Streets,'  353 


FIFTH  LECTURE. 

Arrival  of  the  Casket  Girls — Royal  Ordinance  relative  to  the  Conces- 
sions of  Lands — Manner  of  settling  the  Succession  of  Frenchmen 
married  to  Indian  Women — French  Husbands — Indian  Wives — His- 
tory of  Madame  Dubois,  an  Indian  Squaw — Conspiracy  of  the  Nat- 
chez against  the  French — Massacre  of  the  French  at  Natchez  in  1729 
— Massacre  of  the  French  at  the  Yazoo  Settlement  in  1730 — Attack 
of  the  Natchez  against  the  French  Settlement  at  Natchitoches — They 
are  beaten  by  St.  Denis — The  French  and  Choctaws  attack  the  Nat- 
chez— Daring  and  Death  of  Navarre  and  of  some  of  his  companions 
—Siege  of  the  Natchez  Forts— Flight  of  the  Natchez— Cruel  Treat- 
ment of  Natchez  Prisoners  by  Governor  Perier — Desperation  of  the 
Natchez — The  Chickasaws  grant  an  Asylum  to  the  Natchez — Con- 
spiracy of  the  Banbara  Negroes — List  of  the  Principal  Officers  in  the 
Colony  in  1730 390 


SIXTH  LECTURE. 

Expedition  of  Perier  against  the  Natchez — He  goes  up  Red  River  and 
Black  River  in  pursuit  of  them — Siege  of  their  Fort — Most  of  them 
are  taken  Prisoners  and  sold  as  Slaves — Continuation  of  the  Natchez 
War — The  India  Company  surrenders  its  Charter — Ordinances  on 
the  Currency  of  the  Country — Bienville  reappointed  Governor — Sit- 
uation of  the  Colony  at  that  time — The  Natchez  take  Refuge  among 
the  Chickasaws — Great  Rise  of  the  Mississippi  and  General  Inunda- 
tion— Extraordinary  Number  of  Mad  Dogs — Expedition  of  Bienville 
against  the  Chickasaws— He  attacks  their  Villages— Battle  of  Ackia 
— Daring  Exploit  of  the  black  man,  Simon — Bienville  is  beaten  and 
forced  to  retreat — Expedition  of  D'Artaguette  against  the  Chick- 
asaws— His  Defeat  and  Death — History  of  John  Philip  Grondel — 
Other  Events  and  Facts  from  1729  to  1736 442 


CONTENTS. 


SEVENTH   LECTURE. 

Page 

State  of  Agriculture  in  1736 — Exemption  from  Duties  on  certain  Arti- 
cles of  Importation  and  Exportation — War  between  the  Choctaws 
and  Chickasaws — Singular  Judicial  Proceeding  in  1738 — Bienville's 
Dispatch  on  the  Sand-bars  at  the  Mouth  of  the  Mississippi — De 
ftoailles  is  sent  to  Louisiana  to  command  an  Expedition  against  the 
Chickasaws — Bienville's  Jealousy — Intrigues  of  the  Indian,  Red 
Shoe — General  Rendezvous  of  the  French  at  the  Mouth  of  River 
Margot — Failure  of  that  Expedition — Its  probable  Causes — Bien- 
ville's Apology — Effects  of  a  Hurricane — Situation  of  the  Colony  in 
1741 — Heroism  of  a  French  Girl  in  a  Battle  against  the  Indians — 
Bienville  incurs  the  Displeasure  of  his  Government — He  demands 
the  Establishment  of  a  College — That  Demand  is  refused — Bienville 
is  recalled  to  France — He  departs  never  to  return — He  is  succeeded 
by  the  Marquis  of  Vaudreuil — Other  Facts  and  Events  from  1736 
to  1743,  .......  .497 


PREFACE, 


To  write  history,  is  to  narrate  events,  and  to  show  their 
philosophy,  when  they  are  susceptible  of  any  such  demonstra- 
tion. When  the  subject  is  worthy  of  it,  this  is  a  kind  of  com- 
position of  the  highest  order,  and  which  affords  to  genius  an 
ample  scope  for  the  display  of  all  its  powers.  But  the  infor- 
mation so  conveyed  is  limited  to  the  few,  because  not  suited 
to  the  intelligence  of  the  many.  The  number  of  those  who 
have  read  Tacitus,  Hume,  Gibbon,  or  Clarendon,  is  compara- 
tively small,  when  opposed  to  those  who  have  pored  with  de- 
light over  the  fascinating  pages  of  Walter  Scott.  To  relate 
events,  and,  instead  of  elucidating  and  analyzing  their  phi- 
losophy, like  the  historian,  to  point  out  the  hidden  sources  of 
romance  which  spring  from  them — to  show  what  materials 
they  contain  for  the  dramatist,  the  novelist,  the  poet,  the 
painter,  and  for  all  the  varied  conceptions  of  the  fine  arts — is 
perhaps  an  humbler  task,  but  not  without  its  utility.  When 
history  is  not  disfigured  by  inappropriate  invention,  but  mere- 
ly embellished  and  made  attractive  by  being  set  in  a  glittering 
frame,  this  artful  preparation  honies  the  cup  of  useful  knowl- 
edge, and  makes  it  acceptable  to  the  lips  of  the  multitude. 
Through  the  immortal  writings  of  Walter  Scott,  many  have  be- 
come familiar  with  historical  events,  and  have  been  induced  to 
study  more  serious  works,  who,  without  that  tempting  bait, 
would  have  turned  away  from  what  appeared  to  them  to  be 
but  a  dry  and  barren  field,  too  unpromising  to  invite  examina- 
tion, much  less  cultivation.  To  the  bewitching  pen  of  the  won- 
derful magician  of  her  romantic  hills,  Scotland  owes  more  for 
the  popular  extension  of  her  fame,  than  to  the  doings  of  the 
united  host  of  all  her  other  writers,  warriors,  and  statesmen. 

It  was  in  pursuing  such  a  train  of  reasoning,  that  I  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  republication  of  my  "  Lectures  on  the 
"Romance  or  Poetry  of  the  History  of  Louisiana"  might  be  a 


8  PEEFACE. 

suitable  introduction  to  the  history  of  that  colony,  which  I  have 
subsequently  presented  to  the  public  in  two  other  series  of 
Lectures,  closing  with  the  French  domination  in  Louisiana, 
when  the  Spaniards  took  final  possession  of  that  province  in 
1769.  I  have  attempted  to  vary  my  style  in  accordance  with 
the  events  I  had  to  narrate,  and  to  adapt  it  to  the  legendary, 
the  romantic,  the  traditional,  and  the  strictly  historical  elements 
I  had  to  weave  together,  and  which,  I  believe,  I  have  kept 
sufficiently  distinct.  But  when  the  sobriety  or  the  importance 
of  the  subject  required  it,  I  have  in  no  instance  permitted  my 
imagination  to  dally  with  what  it  was  bound  to  respect.  I 
have  not  forgotten  that  the  historian  is  an  impartial  witness, 
who  voluntarily  appears  before  the  tribunal  of  the  world,  to 
testify  as  to  facts  which  he  has  investigated  and  studied  for  the 
instruction  and  benefit  of  present  and  future  generations,  and 
that  he  is  under  the  most  sacred  obligation  "  to  tell  the  truth, 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth."  Feeling  as  I  did 
the  high  responsibility  I  had  assumed,  I  must  confess  that  I 
experienced  the  greatest  gratification  when  the  most  competent 
of  judges,*  after  a  careful  examination  of  my  labors,  relieved 
my  anxiety  by  writing  to  me :  "  You  give  at  once  to  your  State 
an  authentic  history  such  as  scarce  any  other  in  the  Union  pos- 
sesses. I  have  for  many  years  been  making  manuscript  and 
other  collections,  and  all  the  best  that  I  have  found  appears  in 
your  volumes."  If  this  sentiment,  which  is,  I  am  afraid,  the 
kindly  biased  appreciation  of  friendly  partiality,  be  confirmed 
by  the  more  austere  judgment  of  the  public,  I  need  not  say,  I 
presume,  that  my  reward  has  exceeded  my  expectations. 

•  Mr.  Bancroft. 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  POETRY, 

OB   THE 

ROMANCE  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  LOUISIANA, 


FIRST  SERIES  OF  LECTURES. 


FIKST  LECTUEE. 

PantmvE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY — EXPEDITION  OF  DE  SOTO  IN  1539 — His  DEATH 
— DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  IN  1673,  BY  FATHER  MARQUETTE  AND  JOLIET 
— THEY  ARE  FOLLOWED  IN  1682  BY  LA  SALLE  AND  THE  CHEVALIER  DE  TONTX 
— ASSASSINATION  OF  LA  SALLE. 

HAVING  been  invited  by  a  Committee,  on  behalf  of 
the  People's  Lyceum,  to  deliver  one  of  their  twelve 
annual  Lectures,  I  was  not  long  in  selecting  the  subject 
of  my  labors.  My  mind  had  been  lately  engaged  in 
the  composition  of  the  History  of  Louisiana,  and  it  was 
natural  that  it  should  again  revert  to  its  favorite  object 
of  thought,  on  the  same  principle  which  impels  the 
mightiest  river  to  obey  the  laws  of  declivity,  or  which 
recalls  and  confines  to  its  channel  its  gigantic  volume 
of  waters,  when  occasionally  deviating  from  its  course. 

But  in  reverting  now  to  the  History  of  Louisiana, 
my  intention  is  not  to  review  its  diversified  features 
with  the  scrutinizing,  unimpassioned,  and  austere  judg- 
ment of  the  historian.  Imposing  upon  myself  a  more 
grateful  task,  because  more  congenial  to  my  taste,  I 
shall  take  for  the  object  of  this  Lecture,  THE  POETRY, 

OR   THE   KOMANCE   OF   THE   HlSTORY   OF   LOUISIANA. 


10  POETRY— IMAGINATION. 

Poetry  is  the  daughter  of  Imagination,  and  imagina- 
tion is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  highest  gifts  of  Heaven,  the 
most  refined  ethereal  part  of  the  mind,  because,  when 
carried  to  perfection,  it  is  the  combined  essence  of  all 
the  finest  faculties  of  the  human  intellect.  There  may 
be  sound  judgment,  acute  perceptions,  depth  of  thought, 
great  powers  of  conception,  of  discrimination,  of  re- 
search, of  assimilation,  of  combination  of  ideas,  without 
imagination,  or  at  least  without  that  part  of  it  which 
elaborates  and  exalts  itself  into  poetry ;  but  how  can  we 
conceive  the  existence  of  a  poetical  imagination  in  its 
highest  excellence,  without  all  the  other  faculties? 
Without  them,  what  imagination  would  not  be  imper- 
fect or  diseased  ?  It  is  true  that  without  imagination 
there  may  be  a  world  within  the  mind,  but  it  is  a  world 
without  light.  Cold  it  remains,  and  suffering  from  the 
effects  of  partial  organization,  unless  by  some  mighty 
fiat  imagination  is  breathed  into  the  dormant  mass,  and 
the  sun  of  poetry,  emerging  in  the  heaven  of  the  mind, 
illumines  and  warms  the  several  elements  of  which  it  is 
composed,  and  completes  the  creation  of  the  intellect. 

Hence  the  idea  of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  great  is 
concentrated  in  the  word  poetry.  There  is  no  grand 
conception  of  the  mind  in  which  that  intellectual 
faculty  which  constitutes  poetry  is  not  to  be  detected. 
What  is  great  and  noble,  is  and  must  be  poetical,  and 
what  is  poetical  must  partake,  in  some  degree  or  other, 
of  what  is  great  and  noble.  It  is  hardly  possible  to 
conceive  an  Alexander,  a  Caesar,  a  Napoleon,  a  New- 
ton, a  Lycurgus,  a  Mahomet,  a  Michael  Angelo,  a 
Canova,  or  any  other  of  those  wonderful  men  who  have 
carried  as  far  as  they  could  go,  the  powers  of  the  hu- 
man mind  in  the  several  departments  in  which  they 
were  used,  without  supposing  them  gifted  with  some 
of  those  faculties  of  the  imagination  which  enter  into 


HISTORY   OF  LOUISIANA   POETICAL.  11 

the  composition  of  a  poetical  organization.  Thus  every 
art  and  almost  every  science  has  its  poetry,  and  it  is 
from  the  unanimous  consent  of  mankind  on  this  subject 
that  it  has  become  so  common  to  say  "  the  poetry"  of 
music,  of  sculpture,  of  architecture,  of  dancing,  of  paint- 
ing, of  history,  and  even  the  poetry  of  religion,  meaning 
that  which  is  most  pleasing  to  the  eye  or  to  the  mind, 
and  ennobling  to  the  soul.  We  may  therefore  infer 
from  the  ^general  feeling  to  which  I  have  alluded,  that 
where  the  spirit  of  poetry  does  not  exist,  there  can  not 
be  true  greatness ;  and  it  can,  I  believe,  be  safely  aver- 
red, that  to  try  the  gold  of  all  human  actions  and 
events,  of  all  things  and  matters,  the  touchstone  of 
poetry  is  one  of  the  surest. 

I  am  willing  to  apply  that  criterion  to  Louisiana, 
considered  both  physically  and  historically ;  I  am  will- 
ing that  my  native  State,  which  is  but  a  fragment  of 
what  Louisiana  formerly  was,  should  stand  or  fall  by 
that  test,  and  I  do  not  fear  to  approach  with  her  the 
seat  of  judgment.  I  am  prepared  to  show  that  her  his- 
tory is  full  of  poetry  of  the  highest  order  and  of  the 
most  varied  nature.  I  have  studied  the  subject  con 
amore,  and  with  such  reverential  enthusiasm,  and  I 
may  say  with  such  filial  piety,  that  it  has  grown  upon 
my  heart  as  well  as  upon  my  mind.  May  I  be  able  to 
do  justice  to  its  merits,  and  to  raise  within  you  a  cor- 
responding interest  to  that  which  I  feel !  To  support 
the  assertion  that  the  history  of  Louisiana  is  eminently 
poetical,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  give  you  short  graphical 
descriptions  of  those  interesting  events  which  constitute 
her  annals.  Bright  gems  they  are,  encircling  her 
brows,  diadem-like,  and  worthy  of  that  star  which  has 
sprung  from  her  forehead  to  enrich  the  American  con- 
stellation in  the  firmament  of  liberty. 

Three  centuries  have  hardly  elapsed,  since  that  im- 


12  PRIMITIVE  STATE   OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

mense  territory  which  extends  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
to  the  Lakes  of  Canada,  and  which  was  subsequently 
known  under  the  name  of  Louisiana,  was  slumbering 
in  its  cradle  of  wilderness,  unknown  to  any  of  the  white 
race  to  which  we  belong.  Man  was  there,  however, 
but  man  in  his  primitive  state,  claiming  as  it  were,  in  ap- 
pearance at  least,  a  different  origin  from  ours,  or  being 
at  best  a  variety  of  our  species.  There,  was  the  hered- 
itary domain  of  the  red  man,  living  in  scattered  tribes 
over  that  magnificent  country.  Those  tribes  earned 
their  precarious  subsistence  chiefly  by  pursuing  the  in- 
habitants of  the  earth  and  of  the  water  ;  they  sheltered 
themselves  in  miserable  huts,  spoke  different  languages, 
observed  contradictory  customs,  and  waged  fierce  war 
upon  each  other.  Whence  they  came  none  knew; 
none  knows,  with  absolute  certainty,  to  the  present 
day;  and  the  faint  glimmerings  of  vague  traditions 
have  afforded  little  or  no  light  to  penetrate  into  the 
darkness  of  their  mysterious  origin.  Thus  a  wide  field 
is  left  open  to  those  dreamy  speculations  of  which 
the  imagination  is  so  fond. 

Whence  came  the  Natchez,  those  worshipers  of  the 
sun  with  eastern  rites  ?  How  is  it  that  Grecian  figures 
and  letters  are  represented  on  the  earthen  wares  of 
some  of  those  Indian  nations  ?  Is  there  any  truth  in 
the  supposition  that  some  of  those  savages  whose  com- 
plexion approximates  most  to  ours,  draw  their  blood 
from  that  Welsh  colony  which  is  said  to  have  found  a 
home  in  America,  many  centuries  since  ?  Is  it  possible 
that  Phoenician  adventurers  were  the  pilgrim  fathers 
of  some  of  the  aborigines  of  Louisiana  ?  What  copper- 
colored  swarm  first  issued  from  Asia,  the  revered  womb 
of  mankind,  to  wend  its  untraced  way  to  the  untenanted 
continent  of  America  ?  What  fanciful  tales  could  be 
weaved  on  the  powerful  Choctaws,  or  the  undaunted 


PRIMITIVE  STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY.  13 

ChickfiSaws,  or  the  unconquerable  Mobilians?  There 
the  imagination  may  riot  in  the  poetry  of  mysterious 
migrations,  of  human  transformations ;  in  the  poetry  of 
the  forests,  of  the  valleys,  of  the  mountains,  of  the  lakes 
and  rivers,  as  they  came  fresh  and  glorious  from  the 
hand  of  the  Creator,  in  the  poetry  of  barbaric  manners, 
laws,  and  wars.  What  heroic  poems  might  not  a  fu- 
ture Ossian  devise  on  the  red  rnonarchs  of  old  Louis- 
iana !  Would  not  their  strange  history,  in  the  hands 
of  a  Tacitus,  be  as  interesting  as  that  of  the  ancient 
barbarian  tribes  of  Germany,  described  by  his  immor- 
tal pen  ?  Is  there  in  that  period  of  their  existence 
which  precedes  their  acquaintance  with  the  sons  of 
Europe,  nothing  which,  when  placed  in  contrast  with 
their  future  fate,  appeals  to  the  imagination  of  the  mor- 
alist, of  the  philosopher,  and  of  the  divine?  Who, 
without  feeling  his  whole  soul  glowing  with  poetical 
emotions,  could  sit  under  yonder  gigantic  oak,  the 
growth  of  a  thousand  years,  on  the  top  of  that  hill  of 
shells,  the  sepulcher  of  man,  piled  up  by  his  hands,  and 
overlooking  that  placid  lake  where  all  would  be  repose, 
if  it  were  not  for  that  solitary  canoe,  a  moving  speck, 
hardly  visible  in  the  distance,  did  it  not  happen  to  be 
set  in  bold  relief,  by  being  on  that  very  line  where  the 
lake  meets  the  horizon,  blazing  with  the  last  glories  of 
the  departing  sun?  Is  not  this  the  very  poetry  of 
landscape,  of  Louisianian  landscape  ? 

When  diving  into  the  mysteries  of  the  creation  of 
that  part  of  the  south-western  world  which  was  once 
comprehended  in  the  limits  of  Louisiana,  will  not  the 
geologist  himself  pause,  absorbed  in  astonishment  at 
the  number  of  centuries  which  must  have  been  neces- 
sary to  form  the  delta  of  the  Mississippi  ?  When  he 
discovers  successive  strata  of  forests  lying  many  fathoms 
deep  on  the  top  of  each  other ;  when  he  witnesses  the 


14  EXPEDITION  OF   DE  SOTO. 

exhumation  of  the  fossil  bones  of  mammoths,  elephants, 
or  huge  animals  of  the  antediluvian  race;  when  he 
reads  the  hieroglyphic  records  of  Nature's  wonderful 
doings,  left  by  herself  on  the  very  rocks,  or  other  gran- 
ite and  calcareous  tablets  of  this  country,  will  he  not 
clasp  his  hands  in  ecstasy,  and  exclaim,  "  Oh !  the  dry- 
ness  of  my  study  has  fled ;  there  is  poetry  in  the  very 
foundation  of  this  extraordinary  land !" 

Thus  I  think  that  I  have  shown  that  the  spirit  of 
poetry  was  moving  over  the  face  of  Louisiana,  even  in 
her  primitive  state,  and  still  pervades  her  natural  his- 
tory. But  I  have  dwelt  enough  on  Louisiana  in  the 
dark  ages  of  her  existence,  of  which  we  can  know  noth- 
ing, save  by  vague  traditions  of  the  Indians.  Let  us 
approach  those  times  where  her  historical  records  be- 
gin to  assume  some  distinct  shape. 

On  the  31st  of  May,  1539,  the  bay  of  Santo  Spiritu, 
in  Florida,  presented  a  curious  spectacle.  Eleven  ves- 
sels of  quaint  shape,  bearing  the  broad  banner  of  Spain, 
were  moored  close  to  the  shore ;  one  thousand  men  of 
infantry,  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  men  of  cavalry, 
fully,  equipped,  were  landing  in  proud  array  under  the 
command  of  Hernando  De  Soto,  one  of  the  most  illus- 
trious companions  of  Pizarro  in  the  conquest  of  Peru, 
and  reputed  one  of  the  best  lances  of  Spain !  "  When 
he  led  in  the  van  of  battle,  so  powerful  was  his  charge," 
says  the  old  chronicler  of  his  exploits,  "  so  broad  was 
the  bloody  passage  which  he  carved  out  in  the  ranks  of 
the  enemy,  that  ten  of  his  men-at-arms  could  with  ease 
follow  him  abreast."  He  had  acquired  enormous  wealth 
in  Peru,  and  might  have  rested  satisfied,  a  knight  of 
renown,  in  the  government  of  St.  Jago  de  Cuba,  in  the 
sweet  enjoyment  of  youth  and  of  power,  basking  in  the 
smiles  of  his  beautiful  wife,  Isabella  de  Bobadilla.  But 
his  adventurous  mind  scorns  such  inglorious  repose, 


EXPEDITION   OF  DE   SOTO.  15 

and  now  lie  stands  erect  and  full  of  visions  bright,  on 
the  sandy  shore  of  Florida,  whither  he  comes,  with 
"feudal  pride,  by  leave  of  the  king,  to  establish  nothing 
less  than  a  inarquisate,  ninety  miles  long  by  forty-five 
miles  wide,  and  there  to  rule  supreme,  a  governor  for 
life,  of  all  the  territory  that  he  can  subjugate.  Not 
unmindful  he,  the  Christian  knight,  the  hater  and  con- 
queror of  Moorish  infidelity,  of  the  souls  of  his  future 
vassals;  for,  twenty-two  ecclesiastics  accompany  him 
to  preach  the  word  of  God.  Among  his  followers  are 
gentlemen  of  the  best  blood  of  Spain  and  of  Portugal : 
Don  Juan  de  Guzman ;  Pedro  Calderon,  who,  by  his 
combined  skill  and  bravery,  had  won  the  praises  of 
Gonzalvo  de  Cordova,  yclept  "the  great  captain;" 
Vasconcellos  de  Silva,  of  Portugal,  who  for  birth  and 
courage  knew  no  superior;  Nuno  Tobar,  a  knight 
above  fear  and  reproach ;  and  Muscoso  de  Alvarado, 
whom  that  small  host  of  heroes  ranked  in  their  es- 
timation next  to  Be  Soto  himself.  But  I  stop  an  enu- 
meration which,  if  I  did  justice  to  all,  would  be  too 
long. 

What  materials  for  romance !  Here  is  chivalry, 
with  all  its  glittering  pomp,  its  soul-stirring  aspirations, 
in  full  march,  with  its  iron  heels  and  gilded  spurs, 
toward  the  unknown  and  hitherto  unexplored  soil  of 
Louisiana.  In  sooth,  it  must  have  been  a  splendid 
sight !  Let  us  look  at  the  glorious  pageantry  as  it 
sweeps  by,  through  the  long  vistas  of  those  pine  woods ! 
How  nobly  they  bear  themselves,  those  bronzed  sons 
of  Spain,  clad  in  refulgent  armor!  How  brave  that 
music  sounds  !  How  fleet  they  move,  those  Andalusian 
chargers,  with  arched  necks  and  dilated  nostrils !  But 
the  whole  train  suddenly  halts  in  that  verdant  valley, 
by  that  bubbling  stream,  shaded  by  those  venerable 
oaks  with  gray  moss  hanging  from  their  branches  in 


16  EXPEDITION   OF   DE  SOTO. 

imitation  of  the  whitening  beard  of  age.  Does  not  the 
whole  encampment  rise  distinct  upon  your  minds  ? 

The  tents  with  gay  pennons,  with  armorial  bear- 
ings ;  the  proud  steed  whose  impatient  foot  spurns  the 
ground ;  those  men  stretched  on  the  velvet  grass  and 
recruiting  their  wearied  strength  by  sleep ;  some  sing- 
ing old  Castilian  or  Moorish  roundelays ;  others  musing 
on  the  sweet  rulers  of  their  souls,  left  in  their  distant 
home ;  a  few  kneeling  before  the  officiating  priest,  at 
the  altar  which  a  moment  sufficed  for  their  pious  ardor 
to  erect,  under  yonder  secluded  bower ;  some  burnish- 
ing their  arms,  others  engaged  in  mimic  warfare  and 
trials  of  skill  or  strength ;  De  Soto  sitting  apart  with 
his  peel's  in  rank  if  not  in  command,  and  intent  upon 
developing  to  them  his  plans  of  conquest,  while  the 
dusky  faces  of  some  Indian  boys  and  women  in  the 
background  express  wild  astonishment.  None  of  the 
warriors  of  that  race  are  to  be  seen ;  they  are  reported 
to  be  absent  on  a  distant  hunting  excursion.  But, 
methinks  that  at  times  I  spy  through  the  neighboring 
thickets  the  fierce  glance  of  more  than  one  eye,  spark- 
ling with  the  suppressed  fury  of  anticipated  revenge. 
What  a  scene !  and  would  it  not  afford  delight  to  the 
poet's  imagination  or  to  the  painter's  eye  ? 

In  two  ponderous  volumes,  the  historian  Garcillasso 
relates  the  thousand  incidents  of  that  romantic  expedi- 
tion. What  more  interesting  than  the  reception  of 
Soto  at  the  court  of  the  Princess  Cofachiqui,  the  Dido 
of  the  wilderness !  What  battles,  what  victories  over 
men,  over  the  elements  themselves,  and  over  the  end- 
less obstacles  thrown  out  by  rebellious  nature  !  What 
incredible  physical  difficulties  overcome  by  the  ad- 
vancing host!  How  heroic  is  the  resistance  of  the 
Mobilians  and  of  the  Alabamas  !  With  what  headlong 
fury  those  denizens  of  the  forest  rush  upon  the  iron-clad 


EXPEDITION  OF  DE  SOTO.  17 

warriors,  and  dare  the  thunders  of  those  whom  they 
take  to  be  the  children  of  the  sun !  How  splendidly 
described  is  the  siege  of  Mobile,  where  women  fought 
like  men,  and  wrapped  themselves  up  in  the  flames  of 
their  destroyed  city  rather  than  surrender  to  their  in- 
vaders ! 

But  let  the  conquering  hero  beware !  Now  he  is 
encamped  on  the  territory  of  the  Chickasaws,  the  most 
ferocious  of  the  Indian  tribes.  And  lucky  was  it  that 
Soto  was  as  prudent  as  he  was  brave,  and  slept  equally 
prepared  for  the  defence  and  for  the  attack.  Hark  !  in 
the  dead  of  a  winter's  night,  when  the  cold  wind  of  the 
north,  in  the  month  of  January,  1541,  was  howling 
through  the  leafless  trees,  a  simultaneous  howl  was 
heard,  more  hideous  far  than  the  voice  of  the  tempest. 
The  Indians  rush  impetuous,  with  firebrands,  and  the 
thatched  roofs  which  sheltered  the  Spaniards  are  soon 
on  fire,  threatening  them  with  immediate  destruction. 
The  horses  rearing  and  plunging  in  wild  affright,  and 
breaking  loose  from  their  ligaments ;  the  undaunted 
Spaniards,  half  naked,  struggling  against  the  devouring 
element  and  the  unsparing  foe  ;  the  desperate  deeds  of 
valor  executed  by  Soto  and  his  companions ;  the  deep- 
toned  shouts  of  St.  Jago  and  Spain  to  the  rescue  ;  the 
demon-like  shrieks  of  the  red  warriors  ;  the  final  over- 
throw of  the  Indians  ;  the  hot  pursuit  by  the  light  of 
the  flaming  village  ; — form  a  picture  highly  exciting  to 
the  imagination,  and  cold  indeed  must  he  be  who  does 
not  take  delight  in  the  strange  contrast  of  the  heroic 
warfare  of  chivalry  on  one  side,  and  of  the  untutored 
courage  of  man  in  his  savage  state,  on  the  other. 

It  would  be  too  long  to  follow  Soto  in  his  peregri- 
nations during  two  years,  through  part  of  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  and  Tennessee.  At  last  he  stands  on  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi,  near  the  spot  where  now 


18  EXPEDITION   OF   DE   SOTO. 

flourishes  the  Egyptian-named  city  of  Memphis.  He 
crosses  the  mighty  river,  and  onward  he  goes,  up  to 
the  White  Kiver,  while  roaming  over  the  territory  of 
the  Arkansas.  Meeting  with  alternate  hospitality  and 
hostility  on  the  part  of  the  Indians,  he  arrives  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Red  River,  within  the  present  limits  of 
the  State  of  Louisiana.  There  he  was  fated  to  close 
his  adventurous  career. 

Three  years  of  intense  bodily  fatigue  and  mental 
excitement  had  undermined  the  hero's  constitution. 
Alas !  well  might  the  spirit  droop  within  him !  He  had 
landed  on  the  shore  of  the  North  American  continent 
with  high  hopes,  dreaming  of  conquest  over  wealthy 
nations  and  magnificent  cities.  What  had  he  met? 
Interminable  forests,  endless  lagoons,  inextricable 
marshes,  sharp  and  continual  conflicts  with  men  little 
superior,  in  his  estimation,  to  the  brutish  creation.  He 
who  in  Spain  was  cheered  by  beauty's  glance,  by  the 
songs  of  the  minstrel,  when  he  sped  to  the  contest  with 
adversaries  worthy  of  his  prowess,  with  the  noble  and 
chivalric  Moors ;  he  who  had  reveled  in  the  halls  of 
the  imperial  Incas  of  Peru,  and  who  there  had  amassed 
princely  wealth ;  he,  the  flower  of  knightly  courts,  had 
been  roaming  like  a  vagrant  over  an  immense  territory, 
where  he  had  discovered  none  but  half-naked  savages, 
dwelling  in  miserable  huts,  ignobly  repulsive  when 
compared  with  Castile's  stately  domes,  with  Granada's 
fantastic  palaces,  and  with  Peru's  imperial  dwellings, 
massive  with  gold  !  His  wealth  was  gone,  two  thirds 
of  his  brave  companions  were  dead.  What  account 
of  them  would  he  render  to  their  noble  families !  He, 
the  bankrupt  in  fame  and  in  fortune,  how  would  he 
withstand  the  gibes  of  envy  !  Thought,  that  scourge 
of  life,  that  inward  consumer  of  man,  racks  his  brain, 
his  heart  is  seared  writh  deep  anguish;  a  slow  fever 


DEATH  OF  DE  SOTO.  ly 

wastes  his  powerful  frame,  and  he  sinks  at  last  on  the 
couch  of  sickness,  never  to  rise  again.  The  Spaniards 
cluster  round  him,  and  alternately  look  with  despair 
at  their  dying  chieftain,  and  at  the  ominous  hue  of  the 
bloody  river,  known  at  this  day  under  the  name  of  the 
Red  River.  But  not  he  the  man  to  allow  the  wild 
havoc  within  the  soul  to  betray  itself  in  the  outward 
mien ;  not  he,  in  common  with  the  vulgar  herd,  the 
man  to  utter  one  word  of  wail !  With  smiling  lips  and 
serene  brow  he  cheers  his  companions  and  summons 
them,  one  by  one,  to  swear  allegiance  in  his  hands  to 
Muscoso  de  Alvarado,  whom  he  designates  as  his  suc- 
cessor. "  Union  and  perseverance,  my  friends,"  he  says ; 
"  so  long  as  the  breath  of  life  animates  your  bodies,  do 
not  falter  in  the  enterprise  you  have  undertaken. 
Spain  expects  a  richer  harvest  of  glory  and  more  ample 
domains  from  her  children."  These  are  his  last 
words,  and  then  he  dies.  Blest  be  the  soul  of  the  noble 
knight  and  of  the  true  Christian  !  Rest  his  mortal  re- 
mains in  peace  within  that  oaken  trunk  scooped  by  his 
companions,  and  by  them  sunk  many  fathoms  deep  in 
the  bed  of  the  Mississippi ! 

The  Spaniards,  at  first,  had  tried  to  conceal  the 
death  of  Soto  from  the  Indians,  because  they  felt  that 
there  was  protection  in  the  belief  of  his  existence. 
What  mockery  it  was  to  their  grief,  to  simulate  joy  on 
the  very  tomb  of  their  beloved  chief,  whom  they  had 
buried  in  their  camp  before  seeking  for  him  a  safer 
place  of  repose !  But  when,  the  slaves  of  hard  neces- 
sity, they  were,  with  heavy  hearts  but  smiling  faces, 
coursing  in  tournament  over  the  burial-ground,  and 
profaning  the  consecrated  spot,  the  more  effectually  to 
mislead  the  conjectures  of  the  Indians,  they  saw  that 
their  subterfuge  was  vain,  and  that  the  red  men,  with 
significant  glances,  were  pointing  to  each  other  the 


20  PERILS  OF  HIS  FOLLOWERS. 

precise  spot  where  the  great  white  warrior  slept.  How 
dolorously  does  Garcillasso  describe  the  exhumation 
and  the  plunging  of  the  body  into  the  turbid  stream  of 
the  Great  Father  of  Rivers ! 

Then  comes  an  Odyssey  of  woes.  The  attempt  of 
the  Spaniards  to  go  by  land  to  Mexico ;  their  wander- 
ing as  far  as  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  mountainous 
region  which  lies  between  Mexico  and  Texas,  and 
which  was  destined,  in  after  years,  to  be  so  famous  in 
American  history ;  their  return  to  the  mouth  of  Red 
River ;  their  building  of  vessels  capable  of  navigating 
at  sea ;  the  tender  compassion  and  affectionate  assist- 
ance of  the  good  Cazique  Anilco ;  the  league  of  the 
other  Indian  princes,  far  and  wide,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  great  king,  Quigualtanqui,  the  Agamemnon  of 
the  confederacy ;  the  discovery  of  the  plot ;  the  retreat 
of  all  the  Indian  chiefs  save  the  indomitable  Quigual- 
tanqui ;  the  fleet  of  one  thousand  canoes,  mounted  by 
twenty  thousand  men,  with  which  he  pursued  the 
weary  and  despairing  Spaniards  for  seventeen  long 
days,  assailing  them  with  incessant  fury;  the  giving 
up  of  the  chase  only  when  the  sea  was  nearly  in  sight ; 
the  fierce  parting  words  of  the  Indians  to  the  Spaniards : 
"  Tell  your  countrymen  that  you  have  been  pursued  by 
Quigualtanqui  alone ;  if  he  had  been  better  assisted  by 
his  peers,  none  of  you  would  have  survived  to  tell  the 
tale ;"  the  solemn  rites  with  which,  in  their  thousand 
i^inoes  riveted  on  the  water,  they,  on  the  day  they  ceased 
their  pursuit,  adored  the  rising  sun  and  saluted  him 
with  their  thanksgivings  for  the  expulsion  of  the  in- 
vaders ;  the  hair-breadth  escapes  of  the  three  hundred 
Spaniards  who  alone  out  of  the  bright  host  of  their 
former  companions  had  succeeded  in  fleeing  from  the 
hostile  shore  of  Louisiana ;  their  toils  during  a  naviga- 
tion of  ninety  days  to  the  port  of  Panuco,  where  they 


DISCOVERY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  21 

at  last  arrived  in  a  state  of  utter  destitution,  are  all 
thrilling  incidents  connected  with  the  history  of  Lou- 
isiana, and  replete  with  the  very  essence  of  poetry. 

When  Alvarado,  the  Ulysses  of  that  expedition,  re- 
lated his  adventures  in  the  halls  of  Montezuma,  Don 
Francisco  de  Mendoza,  the  son  of  the  viceroy,  broke 
out  with  passionate  admiration  of  the  conduct  of  Qui- 
gualtanqui :  "  A  noble  barbarian,"  exclaimed  he,  "  an 
honest  man  and  a  true  patriot."  This  remark,  worthy 
of  the  high  lineage  and  of  the  ancestral  fame  of  him 
who  spoke  it,  is  a  just  tribute  to  the  Louisianian  chief, 
and  is  an  apt  epilogue  to  the  recital  of  those  romantic 
achievements,  the  nature  of  which  is  such,  that  the 
poet's  pen  would  be  more  at  ease  with  it  than  that  of 
the  historian. 

One  hundred  and  thirty,  years  had  passed  away 
since  the  apparition  of  Soto  on  the  soil  of  Louisiana, 
without  any  further  attempt  of  the  white  race  to  pene- 
trate into  that  fair  region,  when  on  the  7th  of  July, 
1673,  a  small  band  of  Europeans  and  Canadians  reach- 
ed the  Mississippi,  which  they  had  come  to  seek  from 
the  distant  city  of  Quebec.  That  band  had  two  lead- 
ers, Father  Marquette,  a  monk,  and  Joliet,  a  merchant, 
the  prototypes  of  two  great  sources  of  power,  reli- 
gion and  commerce,  which,  in  the  course  of  time,  were 
destined  to  exercise  such  influence  on  the  civilization  of 
the  western  territory,  traversed  by  the  mighty  river 
which  they  had  discovered.  They  could  not  be  ordi- 
nary men  those  adventurers,  who  in  those  days  under- 
took to  expose  themselves  to  the  fatigues  and  perils  of 
a  journey  through  unknown  solitudes,  from  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  the  Mississippi !  That  humble  monkish 
gown  of  Father  Marquette  concealed  a  hero's  heart ; 
and  in  the  merchant's  breast  there  dwelt  a  soul  that 
would  have  disgraced  no  belted  knight. 


22  MARQUETTE  AND  JOLIET. 

Whether  it  was  owing  to  the  peaceful  garb  in  which 
they  had  presented  themselves,  or  to  some  other  cause, 
the  Indians  hardly  showed  any  of  that  hostility  which 
they  had  exhibited  toward  the  armed  invasion  of 
§pain.  Joliet  and  Father  Marquette  floated  down  the 
river  without  much  impediment,  as  far  as  the  Arkansas. 
There,  having  received  sufficient  evidence  that  the 
Mississippi  discharged  itself  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
they  retraced  their  way  back  and  returned  to  Canada. 
But  in  that  frail  bark  drifting  down  the  current  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  in  which  sat  the  hard  plodding  mer- 
chant, with  the  deep  wrinkles  of  thought  and  forecast 
on  his  brow,  planning  schemes  of  trade  with  unknown 
nations,  and  surveying  with  curious  eye  that  boundless 
territory  which  seemed,  as  he  went  along,  to  stretch  in 
commensurate  proportion  with  the  iufiniteness  of  space ; 
in  that  frail  bark,  I  say,  where  mused  over  his  breviary 
that  gray-headed  monk,  leaning*on  that  long  staff,  sur- 
mounted with  the  silver  cross  of  Christ,  and  computing 
the  souls  that  he  had  saved  and  still  hoped  to  save 
from  idolatry,  is  there  not  as  much  poetry  as  in  the 
famed  vessel  of  Argos,  sailing  in  quest  of  the  golden 
fleece  ?  "Were  not  their  hearts  as  brave  as  those  of  the 
Greek  adventurers?  were  not  their  dangers  as  great? 
and  was  not  the  object  which  they  had  in  view  much 
superior  ? 

The  grandeur  of  their  enterprise  was,  even  at  that 
time,  fully  appreciated.  On  their  return  to  Quebec, 
and  on  their  giving  information  that  they  had  dis- 
covered that  mighty  river  of  which  the  Europeans  had 
but  a  vague  knowledge  conveyed  to  them  by  the  In- 
dians, and  which,  from  the  accounts  given  of  its  width 
and  length,  was  considered  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
wonders  of  the  world,  universal  admiration  was  ex- 
pressed ;  the  bells  of  the  Cathedral  tolled  merrily  for  a 


MARQUETTE  AND  JOLIET.  23 

whole  day,-  and  the  bishop,  followed  by  his  clergy  and 
the  whole  population,  sang  a  solemn  Te  Deum  at  the 
foot  of  the  altar.  Thus,  on  the  first  acquaintance  of  our 
European  fathers  with  the  great  valley  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, of  which  our  present  State  of  Louisiana  is  the 
heart,  there  was  an  instinct  that  told  them  it  was  there 
that  the  seeds  of  empire  and  greatness  were  sown. 
"Were  they  not  right  in  those  divinations  which  pushed 
them  onward  to  that  favored  spot  through  so  many 
obstacles  ?  Greatness  and  empire  were  tJieret  and  there- 
fore all  the  future  elements  of  poetry. 

Joliet  and  Marquette  were  dead,  and  nothing  yet  had 
been  done  to  take  possession  of  the  newly  discovered 
regions  of  the  "West ;  but  the  impetus  was  given ;  the 
march  of  civilization  once  begun  could"  not  retrograde ; 
that  mighty  traveler,  with  religion  for  his  guide,  was 
pushed  onward  by  the  hand  of  God ;  and  the  same 
spirit  which  had  driven  the  crusaders  to  Asia,  now 
turned  the  attention  of  Europe  to  the  continent  of 
America.  The  spell  which  had  concealed  the  Mis- 
sissippi amid  hitherto  impenetrable  forests,  and,  as  it 
were,  an  ocean  of  trees,  was  broken ;  and  the  Indians, 
who  claimed  its  banks  as  their  hereditary  domain,  were 
now  fated  to  witness  the  rapid  succession  of  irresistible 
intruders. 

Seven  years  since  the  expedition  of  Marquette  and 
Joliet  had  rolled  by,  when  Robert  Cavalier  de  La  Salle, 
in  the  month  of  January,  1682,  feasted  his  eyes  with 
the  sight  of  the  far-famed  Mississippi.  For  his  com- 
panions he  had  forty  soldiers,  three  monks,  and  the 
Chevalier  de  Tonti.  He  had  received  the  education  of 
a  Jesuit,  and  had  been  destined  to  the  cloister,  and  to 
become  a  tutor  of  children  in  a  seminary  of  that  cele- 
brated order  of  which  he  was  to  become  a  member. 
But  he  had  that  will,  and  those  passions,  and  that  in- 


24  LA  SALLE. 

tellect  which  can  not  be  forced  into  a  contracted  chan- 
nel of  action.  Bom  poor  and  a  plebeian,  he  wished  to 
be  both  noble  and  rich ;  obscure,  he  longed  to  be  fa- 
mous. Why  not  ?  Man  shapes  his  own  destinies  when 
the  fortitude  of  the  soul  corresponds  with  the  vigorous 
organization  of  the  mind.  When  the  heart  dares 
prompt  the  execution  of  what  genius  conceives,  nothing 
remains  but  to  choose  the  field  of  success.  That  choice 
was  soon  made  by  La  Salle.  America  was  then  exer- 
cising magnetic  attraction  upon  all  bold  spirits,  and  did 
not  fail  to  have  the  same  influence  on  his  own.  Obey- 
ing the  impulse  of  his  ambition,  he  crossed  the  Atlantic* 
without  hesitation,  and  landed  in  Canada  in  167 3. 

When  on  the  continent  of  America,  that  fond  object 
of  his  dreams,  La  Salle  felt  that  he  was  in  a  congenial 
atmosphere  with  his  temperament.  His  mind  seemed 
to  expand,  his  conceptions  to  become  more  vivid,  his 
natural  eloquence  to  be  gifted  with  more  persuasion, 
and  he  was  acknowledged  at  once  by  all  who  saw  and 
heard  him,  to  be  a  superior  being.  Brought  into  con- 
tact with  Count  Frontenac,  who  was  the  governor  of 
Canada,  he  communicated  to  him  his  views  and  pro- 
jects for  the  aggrandizement  of  France,  and  suggested 
to  him  the  gigantic  plan  of  connecting  the  St.  Law- 
rence with  the  Mississippi  by  an  uninterrupted  chain  of 
forts.  "  From  the  information  which  I  have  been  able 
to  collect,"  said  he  to  the  Count,  "  I  think  I  may  affirm 
that  the  Mississippi  draws  its  source  somewhere  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Celestial  Empire,  and  that  France  will 
be  not  only  the  mistress  of  all  the  territory  between 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Mississippi,  but  will  command 
the  trade  of  China,  flowing  down  the  new  and  mighty 
channel  which  I  shall  open  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico." 
Count  Frontenac  was  seduced  by  the  magnificence  of 
the  prospect  sketched  by  the  enthusiast,  but  not  daring 


LA  SALLE.  25 

to  incur  the  expenses  which  such  an  undertaking  would 
have  required,  referred  him  to  the  court  of  France. 

To  France,  then,  the  adventurer  returns  with  in- 
creased confidence ;  for  he  had  secured  one  thing,  he 
had  gained  one  point ;  introduction  to  the  noble  and  to 
the  wealthy  under  the  auspices  of  Count'  Frontenac. 
The  spirit  of  Columbus  was  in  him,  and  nothing  abash- 
ed he  would  have  forced  his  way  to  the  foot  of  the 
throne  and  appealed  to  Majesty  itself,  with  that  assu- 
rance which  genius  imparts.  But  sufficient  was  it  for 
him  to  gain  the  good  graces  of  one  of  the  royal  blood 
of  France,  the  Prince  de  Conti.  He  fired  the  prince's 
mind  with  his  own  contagious  enthusiasm,  and  through 
him  obtained  from  the  king  not  only  an  immense  con- 
cession of  land,  but  was  clothed  with  all  the  powers 
and  privileges  which  he  required  for  trading  with  the 
Indians,  and  for  carrying  on  his  meditated  plans  of  dis- 
covery. Nay,  more,  he  was  ennobled  by  letters-patent, 
and  thus  one  of  the  most  ardent  wishes  of  his  heart 
was  gratified.  At  last,  he  was  no  longer  a  plebeian, 
and  with  Macbeth  he  could  exclaim,  "  Now,  thane  of 
Cawdor,  the  greatest  is  behind." 

La  Salle  re-crossed  the  Atlantic  with  one  worthy  of 
being  his  fidus  Achates,  and  capable  of  understanding 
the  workings  of  his  mind  and  of  his  heart.  That  man 
was  the  Chevalier  De  Tonti,  who,  as  an  officer,  had 
served  with  distinction  in  many  a  war,  and  who  after- 
ward became  famous  among  the  Indians  for  the  iron 
hand  with  which  he  had  artificially  supplied  the  one 
which  he  had  lost. 

On  the  15th  of  September,  1678,  proud  and  erect 
with  the  consciousness  of  success,  La  Salle  stood  again 
in  the  walls  of  Quebec;  and  stimulated  by  the  cheers 
of  the  whole  population,  he  immediately  entered  into 
the  execution  of  his  projects.  Four  years  after,  in 


26  LA  SALLE. 

1682,  lie  was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  in 
the  name  (as  appears  by  a  notarial  act  still  extant)  of 
the  most  puissant,  most  high,  most  invincible  and  victo- 
rious Prince,  Louis  the  Great,  King  of  France,  took 
possession  of  all  the  country  which  he  had  discovered. 
How  his  heart  must  have  swelled  with  exultation, 
when  he  stood  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  river  on  which 
all  his  hopes  had  centered ;  when  he  unfurled  the  white 
banner  and  erected  the  stately  column  to  which  he  ap- 
pended the  royal  escutcheon  of  France,  amid  the  shouts 
of  his  companions  and  the  discharge  of  fire-arms !  With 
what  devotion  he  must  have  joined  in  the  solemn  Te 
Deum  sung  on  that  memorable  occasion ! 

To  relate  all  the  heart-thrilling  adventures  which  oc- 
curred to  La  Salle  during  the  four  years  which  elapsed 
between  the  opening  and  the  conclusion  of  that  expe- 
dition, would  be  to  go  beyond  the  limits  which  are 
allotted  to  me.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  at  this  day  to 
overcome  the  one-hundredth  part  of  the  difficulties 
which  he  had  to  encounter,  would  immortalize  a  man. 
If  it  be  true  that  man  is  never  greater  than  when  en- 
gaged in  a  generous  and  unyielding  struggle  against 
dangers  and  adversity,  then  must  it  be  admitted  that 
during  those  four  years  of  trials  La  Salle  was  pre-emi- 
nently great.  Was  he  not  worthy  of  admiration,  when 
to  the  camp  of  the  Iroquois,  who  at  first  had  received 
him  like  friends,  but  had  been  converted  into  foes,  he 
dared  to  go  alone,  to  meet  the  charges  brought  against 
him  by  the  subtle  Mansolia,  whose  words  were  so  per- 
suasive, and  whose  wisdom  appeared  so  wonderful,  that 
it  was  attributed  to  his  holding  intercourse  with  spirits 
of  another  world  ?  How  interesting  the  spectacle ! 
How  vividly  it  pictures  itself  to  my  mind !  How  it 
would  grace  the  pages  of  a  Fenimore  Cooper,  or  of 
one  having  the  magic  pen  of  a  Walter  Scott!  Me- 


LA  SALLE.  27 

thinks  I  see  that  areopagus  of  stern  old  Indian  warriors 
listening  with  knit  brows  and  compressed  lips  to  the 
passionate  accusation  so  skillfully  urged  against  La 
Salle,  and  to  the  prediction  that  amity  to  the  white 
race  was  the  sure  forerunner  of  destruction  to  all  the 
Indian  tribes.  La  Salle  rose  in  his  turn ;  how  eloquent, 
how  pathetic  ^ie  was  when  appealing  to  the  better  feel- 
ings of  the  Indians,  and  how  deserving  of  the  verdict 
rendered  in  his  favor ! 

The  enmity,  the  ambushes  of  Indians  were  not  to 
him  the  only  sources  of  danger.  These  he  could  have 
stood  unmoved !  But  what  must  have  been  his  feel- 
ings when  he  became  conscious  of  the  poison  which  had 
been  administered  'to  him  by  some  of  his  companions, 
who  thought  that,  by  destroying  him,  they  would  spare 
to  themselves  the  anticipated  horrors  of  an  expedition 
which  they  no  longer  had  the  courage  to  prosecute ! 
What  his  despair  was,  is  attested  by  the  name  of 
"  Or  eve  Cceur"  which  he  gave  to  a  fort  he  built  a  short 
time  after — the  fort  of  the  "  Broken  Heart !"  But  let 
us  turn  from  his  miseries  to  the  more  grateful  spectacle 
of  his  ovation. 

In  1684  he  returned  to  France,  and  found  himself 
famous.  He,  the  poor  boy,  the  ignoble  by  birth,  for 
whom  paternal  tenderness  had  dreamed  nothing  higher 
than  the  honor  of  being  a  teacher  in  a  seminary  of  Je- 
suits, was  presented  to  Louis  XIV.  amid  all  the  splen- 
dors of  his  court !  That  Jupiter  among  the  kings  of 
the  earth  had  a  smile  to  bestow  upon  the  humble  sub- 
ject who  came  to  deposit  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  the 
title-deeds  of  such  broad  domains.  But  that  smile  of 
royalty  was  destined  to  be  the  last  smile  of  fortune. 
The  favors  which  he  then  obtained  bred  nothing  but 
reverses.  Every  thing,  however,  wore  a  bright  aspect, 


28  LA  SALLE. 

and  the  star  of  his  destiny  appeared  to  be  culminating 
in  the  heavens. 

Thus  a  fleet,  composed  of  four  vessels,  was  put  at  his 
disposal,  with  all  the  materials  necessary  to  establish  a 
colony,  and  once  more  he  left  the  shores  of  his  native 
country,  but  this  time  invested  with  high  command,  and 
hoping  perhaps  to  be  the  founder  of  an  empire.  This, 
indeed,  was  something  worth  having  struggled  for? 
But  alas  !  he  had  struggled  in  vain ;  the  meshes  of  ad- 
verse fate  were  drawing  close  around  him.  Here  is  not 
the  place  to  relate  his  misunderstandings,  degenerating 
into  bitter  quarrels  with  the  proud  Beaujeu,  who  had 
the  subordinate  command  of  the  fleet,  and  who  thought 
himself  dishonored — he,  the  old  captain  of  thirty  years' 
standing,  he,  the  nobleman — by  being  placed  under 
the  control  of  the  unprofessional,  of  the  plebeian,  of  him 
whom  he  called  a  pedagogue,  fit  only  to  rule  over  chil- 
dren. The  result  of  that  conflict  was,  that  La  Salle 
found  himself  abandoned  on  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of 
St.  Bernard,  in  1685,  and  was  reduced  to  shift  for  him- 
self, with  very  limited  resources.  Here  follows  a  pe- 
riod of  three  other  years  of  great  sufferings  and  of  bold 
and  incessant  wanderings  through  the  territory  of  the 
present  State, of  Texas,  where,  after  a  long  series  of  ad- 
ventures, he  was  basely  murdered  by  his  French  com- 
panions, and  revenged  by  his  body-servant,  an  English- 
man by  birth.  He  died  somewhere  about  the  spot 
where  now  stands  the  town  of  Washington,  which 
owes  its  foundation  to  some  of  that  race  to  which  be- 
longed his  avenger,  and  the  star-spangled  banner  now 
proudly  waves  where  the  first  pioneer  of  civilization 
consecrated  with  his  blood  the  future  land  of  liberty. 

The  rapid  sketch  which  I  have  given  shows,  that  so 
much  of  La  Salle's  life  as  belongs  to  history  occupies 
a  space  of  fifteen  years,  and  is  so  full  of  incidents  as 


LA  SALLE.  29 

to  afford  materials  enough  for  the  production  of  a 
voluminous  and  interesting  book.  But  I  think  I  may 
safely  close  my  observations  with  the  remark,  that  he 
who  will  write  the  life  of  that  extraordinary  man,  how- 
ever austere  his  turn  of  mind  may  be,  will  hardly  be 
able  to  prevent  the  golden  hues  of  poetry  from  over- 
spreading the  pages  which  he  may  pen,  where  history 
is  so  much  like  romance  that,  in  many  respects,  it  is 
likely  to  be  classed  as  such  by  posterity. 

Here  I  must  close  this  historical  sketch ;  here  I  must 
stop,  on  the  threshold  of  the  edifice  through  which  I 
should  like  to  wander  with  you,  in  order  to  call  your 
attention  not  only  to  the  general  splendor,  but  to  the 
minute  perfection  of  its  architecture.  Perhaps,  at  a 
future  period,  if  your  desire  should  keep  pace  with  my 
inclination,  I  may  resume  the  subject ;  and  I  believe  it 
will  then  be  easy  for  me  to  complete  the  demonstration 
that  our  annals  constitute  a  rich  mine,  where  lies  in 
profusion  the  purest  ore  of  poetry,  not  to  be  found  in 
broken  and  scattered  fragments,  but  forming  an  unin- 
terrupted vein  through  the  whole  history  of  Louisiana, 
in  all  its  varied  phases,  from  the  primitive  settlement 
made  at  Biloxi  to  the  present  time,  when  she  wears  the 
diadem  iSTsbvereignty,  and  when,  with  her  blood  and 
treasure,  and  with  a  spirit  of  chivalry  worthy  of  her 
Spanish  and  French  descent,  and  of  her  Anglo-Saxon 
adoption,  she  was  the  first  to  engage  in  the  support 
of  that  war  which,  so  glorious  in  its  beginning  at  Palo 
Alto,  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  Monterey,  and  Buena  Vista, 
will  undoubtedly  have  an  equally  glorious,  and  I  think 
I  may  add,  a  poetical  termination  in  the  walls  of 
Mexico ! 


SECOND  LECTURE. 

ARRIVAL  OF  IBERVILLK  AND  BIENVILLE — SETTLEMENT  OF  A  FRENCH  COLONT  IN 
LOUISIANA — SAUVOLLE,  FIRST  GOVERNOR — EVENTS  AND  CHARACTERS  IN  LOUIS- 
IANA, OR  CONNECTED  WITH  THAT  COLONY,  FROM  LA  SALLE'8  DEATH,  IN  1687, 
TO  1701. 

I  CLOSED  my  last  Lecture  with  La  Salle's  death,  in 
1687.  A  few  years  after,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same 
century,  a  French  ship  of  42  guns,  on  one  of  those 
beautiful  days  which  are  the  peculiar  offspring  of  the 
autumnal  climate  of  America,  happened  to  be  coasting 
the  hostile  shore  of  New  England.  At  that  time  Eng- 
land and  France  were  at  war,  and  the  bays  and  harbors 
of  the  British  possessions  were  swarming  with  the  float- 
ing battlements  of  the  mistress  of  the  sea.  Never- 
theless, from  the  careless  manner  in  which  that  ship, 
which  bore  the  white  flag  of  France,  hugged  the  coast, 
one  would  have  thought  that  no  danger  was  to  be  ap- 
prehended from  such  close  proximity  to  captivity  or 
death.  Suddenly,  three  vessels  hove  in  sight ;  it  was 
not  long  before  their  broad  canvas  wings  seemed  to 
spread  wider,  and  their  velocity  to  increase.  To  the 
most  unpracticed  eye  it  would  have  been  evident  that 
they  were  in  pursuit  of  an  object  which  they  longed  to 
reach.  Yet,  they  of  the  white  flag  appeared  to  be  un- 
conscious of  the  intention  of  their  fellow-travelers  on 
the  boundless  desert  of  the  ocean.  Although  the 
French  ship,  with  her  long  masts,  towering  like  steeples, 
could  have  borne  much  more  canvas ;  although  the 


IBERVILLE'S   SEA-FIGHT.  31 

breeze  blew  fresh,  and  the  circumstance  might  have 
invited  to  rapidity  of  motion,  yet  not  one  additional 
inch  of  sail  did  she  show,  but  she  continued  to  move 
with  a  speed,  neither  relaxed  nor  increased,  and  as  if 
enjoying  a  holy  day  excursion  on  Old  Neptune's  do- 
mains. 

High  on  the  quarter-deck  stood  the  captain,  with 
the  spy-glass  in  his  hands,  and  surrounded  by  his  offi- 
cers. After  a  minute  survey  of  the  unknown  vessels, 
as  they  appeared,  with  outlines  faint  and  hardly  visible 
from  the  distance,  and  with  the  tip  of  their  masts  grad- 
ually emerging,  as  it  were,  from  the  waves,  he  had 
dropped  his  glass,  and  said  to  the  bystanders :  "  Gen- 
tlemen, they  are  vessels  of  war,  and  British."  Then  he 
instinctively  cast  a  rapid  glance  upward  at  the  rigging 
of  his  ship,  as  if  to  satisfy  himself  that  nothing  had 
happened  there,  to  mar  that  symmetrical  neatness  and 
scientific  arrangement  which  have  ever  been  held  to  be 
a  criterion  of  nautical  knowledge,  and  therefore  a 
proper  source  of  professional  pride.  But  the  look 
which  he  flung  at  the  deck  was  long  and  steady.  That 
thoughtful,  lingering  look  embraced  every  object,  ani- 
mate or  inanimate,  which  there  stood.  Ay !  that  ab- 
stracted look  and  those  compressed  lips  must  have  con- 
veyed meaning,  as  distinct  as  if  words  had  been  spoken ; 
for  they  produced  instantaneous  action,  such  action  as 
when  man  prepares  to  meet  man  in  deadly  encounter. 
It  was  plain  that  between  that  chief  and  his  crew  there 
was  that  sympathetic  congeniality  which  imparts 
thought  and  feeling  without  the  use  of  language.  It 
was  plain  that  on  all  occasions  when  the  soul  was  sum- 
moned into  moral  volition  and  stirred  into  the  as- 
sumption of  high  and  uncommon  resolves,  the  same 
electric  fluid,  gushing  from  the  heart,  pervaded  at  once 
the  whole  of  that  human  mass.  But,  if  a  change  had 


32  IBERVILLE'S  SEA-FIGHT. 

come  over  the  outward  appearance  of  that  ship's  deck, 
none  had  taken  place  in  her  upper  trimming.  The 
wind  continued  to  fill  the  same  number  of  sails,  and 
the  ship,  naiad-like,  to  sport  herself  leisurely  in  her 
favorite  element. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  vessels  which  had  been  descried 
at  the  farthest  point  of  the  horizon,  had  been  rapidly 
gaining  ground  upon  the  intervening  distance,  and 
were  dilating  in  size  as  they  approached.  It  could  be 
seen  that  they  had  separated  from  each  other,  and  they 
appeared  to  be  sweeping  round  the  Pelican  (for  such 
was  the  name  of  the  French  ship),  as  if  to  cut  her  off 
from  retreat.  Already  could  be  plainly  discovered  St. 
George's  cross,  flaunting  in  the  wind.  The  white  cloud 
of  canvas  that  hung  over  them  seemed  to  swell  with 
every  flying  minute,  and  the  wooden  structures  them- 
selves, as  they  plunged  madly  over  the  furrowed  plains 
of  the  Atlantic,  looked  not  unlike  Titanic  race-horses 
pressing  for  the  goal.  Their  very  masts  with  their  long 
flags  streaming,  like  Gorgon's  disheveled  locks,  seemed, 
as  they  bent  under  the  wind,  to  be  quivering  with  the 
anxiety  of  the  chase.  But,  ye  sons  of  Britain,  why  this 
hot  haste  ?  Why  urge  ye  into  such  desperate  exertions 
the  watery  steeds  which  ye  spur  on  so  fiercely  ?  They 
of  the  white  flag  never  thought  of  flight.  See !  they 
shorten  sail  as  if  to  invite  you  to  the  approach.  Be- 
ware ye  do  not  repent  of  your  efforts  to  cull  the  Lily 
of  France,  so  temptingly  floating  in  your  sight !  If  ye 
be  falcons  of  pure  breed,  yonder  bird,  that  is  resting 
his  folded  pinions  and  sharpening  his  beak,  is  no  car- 
rion crow.  Who,  but  an  eagle,  would  have  looked 
with  such  imperturbable  composure  at  your  rapid  gyra- 
tions, betokening  the  thunderbolt-like  swoop  which  is 
to  descend  upon  his  devoted  head  ? 

Now,  forsooth,  the  excitement  of  the  looker-on  must 


IBERVILLE'S   SEA-FIGHT.  33 

be  tenfold  increased :  now  the  four  vessels  are  within 
gun-shot,  and  the  fearful  struggle  is  to  begin.  One  is  a 
British  ship  of  the  line,  showing  a  row  of  52  guns,  and 
her  companions  are  frigates  armed  with  42  guns  each. 
To  court  such  unequal  contest,  must  not  that  French 
commander  be  the  very  impersonation  of  madness  ? 
There  he  stands  on  the  quarter-deck,  a  man  apparently 
thirty  years  of  age,  attired  as  if  for  a  courtly  ball,  in 
the  gorgeous  dress  of  the  time  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth. 
The  profuse  curls  of  his  perfumed  hair  seem  to  be 
bursting  from  the  large,  slouched  gray  hat,  which  he 
wears  on  one  side  inclined,  and  decorated  with  a  red 
plume  horizontally  stuck  to  the  broad  brim,  according 
to  the  fashion  of  the  day.  What  a  noble  face !  If  I 
were  to  sculpture  a  hero,  verily,  I  would  put  such  a 
head  on  his  shoulders — nay,  I  would  take  the  whole 
man  for  my  model !  I  feel  that  I  could  shout  with  en- 
thusiasm, when  I  see  the  peculiar  expression  which  has 
settled  in  that  man's  eye,  in  front  of  such  dangers  thick- 
ening upon  him !  Ha !  what  is  it  ?  What  signify  that 
convulsive  start  which  shook  his  frame,  and  that  death- 
like paleness  which  has  flitted  across  his  face  ?  What 
woman-like'  softness  has  suddenly  crept  into  those  eyes  ? 
By  heaven !  a  tear  !  I  saw  it,  although  it  passed  as 
rapidly  as  if  a  whirlwind  had  swept  it  ofi:^  and  although 
every  feature  has  now  resumed  its  former  expression  of 
more  than  human  firmness. 

I  understand  it  all !  That  boy,  so  young,  so  effemi- 
nate, so  delicate,  but  who,  in  an  under-officer's  dress, 
stands  with  such  manly  courage  by  one  of  the  guns, — • 
he  is  your  brother,  is  he  not  ?  Perhaps  he  is  doomed 
to  death  !  and  you  think  of  his  aged  mother !  Well 
may  the  loss  of  two  such  sons  crush  her  at  once !  When 
I  see  such  exquisite  feelings  tumultuously  at  work  in  a 

heart  as  soft  as  ever  throbbed  in  a  woman's  breast; 
C 


34  IBERVILLE'S   SEA-FIGHT. 

when  I  see  you,  Iberville,  resolved  to  sacrifice  so  much, 
rather  than  to  fly  from  your  country's  enemies,  even 
when  it  could  be  done  without  dishonor,  stranger  as 
you  are  to  me,  I  wish  I  could  stand  by  you  on  that 
deck  and  hug  you  to  my  bosom ! 

What  awful  silence  on  board  of  those  ships  !  Were 
it  not  for  the  roar  of  the  waves,  as  they  are  cleft  by  the 
gigantic  bulks  under  which  they  groan,  the  chirping  of 
a  cricket  might  be  distinctly  heard.  How  near  they 
are  to  each  other  !  A  musket  shot  would  tell.  Now, 
the  crash  is  coming !  The  tempest  of  fire,  havoc,  and 
destruction  is  to  be  let  loose !  What  a  spectacle !  I 
would  not  look  twice  at  such  a  scene — it  is  too  painful 
for  an  unconcerned  spectator !  My  breast  heaves  with 
emotion — I  am  struggling  in  vain  to  breathe !  Ha ! 
there  it  goes — one  simultaneous  blaze !  The  eruption 
of  Mount  Vesuvius — a  strange  whizzing  sound — the 
hissing  of  ten  thousand  serpents,  bursting  from  hell  and 
drunk  with  its  venom — the  fall  of  timber,  as  if  a  host 
of  sturdy  axes  had  been  at  work  in  the  forest — a  thick 
overspreading  smoke  concealing  the  demon's  work 
within  its  dusky  folds !  With  the  occasional  clearing 
of  the  smoke,  the  French  ship  may  be  seen,  as  if  ani- 
mated with  a  charmed  life,  gliding  swiftly  by  her  foes, 
and  pouring  in  her  broadsides  with  unabated  rapidity. 
It  looks  like  the  condensation  of  all  the  lightnings  of 
heaven.  Her  commander,  as  if  gifted  with  supernatural 
powers  and  with  the  privilege  of  ubiquity,  seems  to  be 
present  at  the  same  time  in  every  part  of  the  ship,  ani- 
mating and  directing  all  with  untiring  ardor. 

That  storm  of  human  warfare  has  lasted  about  two 
hours ;  but  the  French  ship,  salamander-like,  seems 
to  live  safely  in  that  atmosphere  of  fire.  Two  hours  ! 
I  can  stand  this  excitement  no  longer ;  and  yet  every 
minute  is  adding  fresh  fuel  to  its  intensity.  But 


IBERVILLE'S  VICTORY.  35 

now  comes  the  crisis.  The  Pelican  has  almost  silenced 
the  guns  of  the  English  52,  and  is  bearing  down  upon 
her  evidently  with  the  intention  to  board.  But, 
strange !  she  veers  round.  Oh !  I  see.  God  of  mercy ! 
I  feel  faint  at  heart !  The  52  is  sinking — slowly  she 
settles  in  the  surging  sea — there — there — there — down ! 
What  a  yell  of  defiance !  But  it  is  the  last.  What  a 
rushing  of  the  waters  over  the  ingulfed  mass !  Now 
all  is  over,  and  the  yawning  abyss  has  closed  its 
lips. — What  remains  to  be  seen  on  that  bloody  thea- 
ter ?  One  of  the  English  42s,  in  a  dismantled  state, 
is  dropping  slowly  at  a  distance  under  the  wind,  and 
the  other  has  already  struck  its  flag,  and  is  lying 
motionless  on  the  ocean,  a  floating  ruin ! 

The  French  ship  is  hardly  in  a  better  plight,  and  the 
last  rays  of  the  setting  sun  show  her  deck  strewed  with 
the  dead  and  the  dying.  But  the  glorious  image  of  vic- 
tory flits  before  the  dimmed  vision  of  the  dying,  and 
they  expire  with  the  smile  of  triumph  on  their  lips,  and 
with  the  exulting  shout  of  "  France  forever  /" 

But  where  is  the  conqueror  ?  Where  is  the  gallant 
commander,  whose  success  sounds  like  a  fable?  My 
heart  longs  to  see  him  safe,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
well-earned  glory.  Ah!  there  he  is,  kneeling  and 
crouching  over  the  prostrate  body  of  that  stripling 
whom  I  have  depicted :  he  addresses  the  most  tender 
and  passionate  appeals  to  that  senseless  form ;  he  covers 
with  kisses  that  bloody  head  ;  he  weeps  and  sobs  aloud, 
unmindful  of  those  that  look  on.  In  faith  !  I  weep  my- 
self, to  see  the  agony  of  that  noble  heart :  and  why 
should  that  hero  blush  to  moan  like  a  mother — he  who 
showed  more  than  human  courage,  when  the  occasion 
required  fortitude  ?  Weep  on,  Iberville,  weep  on ! 
Well  may  such  tears  be  gathered  by  an  angel's  wings, 
like  dew-drops  worthy  of  heaven,  and,  if  carried  by 


36  IBERVILLE  AND  BIEXVILLE. 

supplicating  inercy  to  the  foot  of  the  Almighty's  throne, 
they  may  yet  redeem  thy  brother's  life ! 

Happily,  that  brother  did  not  die.  He  was  destined 
to  be  known  in  history  under  the  name  of  Bienville, 
and  to  be  the  founder  of  one  of  America's  proudest 
cities.  To  him  New  Orleans  owes  its  existence,  and 
his  name,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  will  grow  in  the 
esteem  of  posterity,  proportionately  with  the  aggran- 
dizement of  the  future  emporium  of  so  many  countless 
millions  of  human  beings. 

The  wonderful  achievement  which  I  have  related  is 
a  matter  of  historical  record,  and  throws  a  halo  of  glory 
and  romance  around  those  two  men,  who  have  since 
figured  so  conspicuously  in  the  annals  of  Louisiana,  and 
who,  in  the  beginning  of  March,  1699,  entered  the  Mis- 
sissippi, accompanied  by  Father  Anastase,  the  former 
companion  of  La  Salle  in  his  expedition  down  the 
river  in  1682. 

Since  the  occurrence  of  that  battle,  of  which  I  have 
given  but  an  imperfect  description,  Iberville  and  Bien- 
ville had  been  through  several  campaigns  at  sea,  and 
had  encountered  the  dangers  of  many  a  fight.  What  a 
remarkable  family  !  The  father,  a  Canadian  by  birth, 
had  died  on  the  field  of  battle,  in  serving  his  country, 
and  out  of  eleven  sons,  the  worthy  scions  of  such  a 
stock,  five  had  perished  in  the  same  cause.  Out  of  the 
six  that  remained,  five  were  to  consecrate  themselves 
to  the  establishment  of  a  colony  in  Louisiana. 

Before  visiting  the  Mississippi,  Iberville  had  left  his 
fleet  anchored  at  the  Chandeleur  Islands.  This  name 
proceeds  from  the  circumstance  of  their  having  been 
discovered  on  the  day  when  the  Catholic  Church  cele- 
brates the  feast  of  the  presentation  of  Christ  in  the  tem- 
ple, and  of  the  purification  of  the  Virgin.  They  are 
flat,  sandy  islands,  which  look  as  if  they  wish  to  sink 


THEIR  ARRIVAL  AT  CAT  ISLAND.  37 

back  into  the  sea,  from  shame  of  having  come  into  the 
world  prematurely,  and  before  having  been  shaped  and 
licked  by  nature  into  proper  objects  of  existence.  No 
doubt,  they  did  not  prepossess  the  first  colonists  in 
favor  of  what  they  were  to  expect.  The  French  visited 
also  Ship  Island,  so  called  from  its  appearing  to  be  a 
safe  roadstead  for  ships,  but  it  offered  to  the  visitors  no 
greater  attraction  than  the  precedent.  The  next  island 
they  made  had  not  a  more  inviting  physiognomy. 
When  they  landed  on  that  forbidding  and  ill-looking 
piece  of  land,  they  found  it  to  be  a  small,  squatting 
island,  covered  with  indifferent  wood,  and  intersected 
with  lagoons.  It  literally  swarmed  with  a  curious  kind 
of  animal,  which  seemed  to  occupy  the  medium  between 
the  fox  and  the  cat.  It  was  difficult  to  say  whether  it 
belonged  to  one  species  in  preference  to  the  other. 
But  one  of  the  French  having  exclaimed,  "  This  is  the 
kingdom  of  cats  /''  decided  the  question,  and  the  name 
of  Cat  Island  was  given  to  the  new  discovery.  Here 
that  peculiar  animal,  which  was  subsequently  to  be 
known  in  the  United  States  under  the  popular  name 
of  racoon,  formed  a  numerous  and  a  contented  tribe ; 
here  they  lived  like  philosophers,  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  enjoying  their  nuts — their  loaves 
and  fishes.  I  invite  fabulists,  or  those  who  have  a  turn 
for  fairy  tales,  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  that  grimal- 
kin colony,  and  to  endear  Cat  Island  to  the  juvenility 
of  our  State,  by  reciting  the  marvelous  doings  of  which 
it  was  the  theater. 

It  was  fraught,  however,  with  so  little  interest  in  the 
estimation  of  the  French,  that  they  hastened  to  leave  it 
for  the  land  they  had  in  sight.  It  formed  a  bay,  the 
shores  of  which  they  found  inhabited  by  a  tribe  of  In- 
dians, called  Biloxi,  who  proved  as  hospitable  as  their 
name  was  euphonic. 

-40- 


38  MOUTH  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 

On  the  27th  of  February,  1699,  Iberville  and  Bien- 
ville  departed  from  Biloxi  in  search  of  the  Mississippi. 
When  they  approached  its  mouth,  they  were  struck 
with  the  gloomy  magnificence  of  the  sight.  As  far  as 
the  eye  could  reach,  nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  reeds 
which  rose  five  or  six  feet  above  the  waters  in  which 
they  bathed  their  roots.  They  waved  mournfully 
under  the  blast  of  the  sharp  wind  of  the  north,  shiver- 
ing in  its  icy  grasp,  as  it  tumbled,  rolled,  and  gam- 
boled on  the  pliant  surface.  Multitudes  of  birds  of 
strange  appearance,  with  their  elongated  shapes,  so 
lean  that  they  looked  like  metamorphosed  ghosts, 
clothed  in  pluma'ge,  screamed  in  the  air,  as  if  they  were 
scared  at  each  other.  There  was  something  agonizing 
in  their  shrieks,  that  was  in  harmony  with  the  desola- 
tion of  the  place.  On  every  side  of  the  vessel,  mon- 
sters of  the  deep  and  huge  alligators  heaved  themselves 
up  heavily  from  their  native  or  favorite  element,  and, 
floating  lazily  on  the  turbid  waters,  seemed  to  gaze  at 
the  intruders.  Down  the  river,  and  rumbling  over  its 
bed,  there  came  a  sort  of  low,  distant  thunder.  Was 
it  the  voice  of  the  hoary  sire  of  rivers,  raised  in  anger 
at  the  prospect  of  his  gigantic  volume  of  waters  being 
suddenly  absorbed  by  one  mightier  than  he  ? — In  their 
progress,  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  the  travelers 
could  keep  their  bark  free  from  those  enormous  rafts 
of  trees  which  the  Mississippi  seemed  to  toss  about  in 
mad  frolic.  A  poet  would  have  thought  that  the  great 
river,  when  departing  from  the  altitude  of  his  birth- 
place, and  as  he  rushed  down  to  the  sea  through  three 
thousand  miles,  had,  in  anticipation  of  a  contest  which 
threatened  the  continuation  of  his  existence,  flung  his 
broad  arms  right  and  left  across  the  continent,  and  up- 
rooting all  its  forests,  had  hoarded  them  in  his  bed  as 


ITS  DESCRIPTION— TONTL  39 

missiles  to  hurl  at  the  head  of  his  mighty  rival,  when 
they  should  meet  and  struggle  for  supremacy. 

When  night  began  to  cast  a  darker  hue  on  a  land- 
scape on  which  the  imagination  of  Dante  would  have 
gloated,  there  issued  from  that  chaos  of  reeds  such  un- 
couth and  unnatural  sounds,  as  would  have  saddened 
the  gayest  and  appalled  the  most  intrepid.  Could  this 
be  the  far-famed  Mississippi  ?  or  was  it  not  rather  old 
Avernus  ?  It  was  hideous  indeed — but  hideousness  re- 
fined into  sublimity,  filling  the  soul  with  a  sentiment  of 
grandeur.  Nothing  daunted,  the  adventurers  kept 
steadily  on  their  course :  they  knew  that,  through  those 
dismal  portals,  they  were  to  arrive  at  the  most  mag- 
nificent country  in  the  world ;  they  knew  that  awful 
screen  concealed  loveliness  itself.  It  was  a  coquettish 
freak  of  nature,  when  dealing  with  European  curiosity, 
as  it  came  eagerly  bounding  on  the  Atlantic  wave,  to 
herald  it  through  an  avenue  so  somber,  as  to  cause  the 
wonders  of  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi  to  burst 
with  tenfold  more  force  upon  the  bewildered  gaze  of 
those  who,  by  the  endurance  of  so  many  perils  and 
fatigues,  were  to  merit  admittance  into  its  Eden. 

It  was  a  relief  for  the  adventurers  when,  after  having 
toiled  up  the  river  for  ten  days,  they  at  last  arrived  at 
the  village  of  the  Bayagoulas.  There  they  found  a  let- 
ter of  Tonti  to  La  Salle,  dated  in  1685.  That  letter,  or 
rather  that  speaking  lark,  as  the  Indians  called  it,  had 
been  preserved  with  great  reverence.  Tonti  having 
been  informed  that  La  Salle  was  coming  with  a  fleet 
from  France,  to  settle  a  colony  on  the  banks  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, had  not  hesitated  to  set  off  from  the  Northern 
Lakes,  with  twenty  Canadians  and  thirty  Indians,  and 
to  come  down  to  the  Balize  to  meet  his  friend,  who,  as 
we  know,  had  failed  to  make  out  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, and  had  been  landed  by  Beaujeu  on  the 


40  EXPLORATIONS. 

shores  of  Texas.  After  having  waited  for  some  time, 
and  ignorant  of  what  had  happened,  Tonti,  with  the 
same  indifference  to  fatigues  and  dangers  of  an  appall- 
ing nature,  retraced  his  way  back,  leaving  a  letter  to 
La  Salle  to  inform  him  of  his  disappointment.  Is  there 
not  something  extremely  romantic  in  the  characters  of 
the  men  of  that  epoch  ?  Here  is  Tonti  undertaking, 
with  the  most  heroic  unconcern,  a  journey  of  nearly 
three  thousand  miles,  through  such  difficulties  as  it  is 
easy  for  us  to  imagine,  and  leaving  a  letter  to  La  Salle, 
as  a  proof  of  his  visit,  in  the  same  way  that  one  would, 
in  these  degenerate  days  of  effeminacy,  leave  a  card  at 
a  neighbor's  house. 

The  French  extended  their  explorations  up  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Red  River.  As  they  proceeded  through 
that  virgin  country,  with  what  interest  they  must  have 
examined  every  object  that  met  their  eyes,  and  listened 
to  the  traditions  concerning  Soto,  and  the  more  recent 
stories  of  the  Indians  on  La  Salle  and  the  iron-handed 
Tonti  !*  A  coat  of  mail  which  was  presented  as  having 
belonged  to  the  Spaniards,  and  vestiges  of  their  en- 
campment on  the  Red  River,  confirmed  the  French  in 
the  belief  that  there  was  much  of  truth  in  the  recitals 
of  the  Indians. 

On  their  return  from  the  mouth*  of  the  Red  River, 
the  two  brothers  separated  when  they  arrived  at  Bayou 
Manchac.  Bienville  was  ordered  to  go  down  the  river 
to  the  French  fleet,  to  give  information  of  what  they 
had  seen  and  heard.  Iberville  went  through  Bayou 
Manchac  to  those  lakes  which  are  now  known  under 
the  names  of  Pontchartrain  and  Maurepas.  Louisiana 
had  been  named  from  a  king :  was  it  not  in  keeping 
that  those  lakes  should  be  called  after  ministers  ? 

*  He  had  lost  one  of  his  hands,  which  he  had  supplied  by  an  artificial  one  made 
of  iron. 


PONTCHARTRAIK  41 

It  lias  been  said  that  there  is  something  in  a  name. 
If  it  be  true,  why  should  not  I  tell  you  who  were  those 
from  whom  the  names  of  those  lakes  were  borrowed  ? 
Is  it  not  something  even  for  inanimate  objects  to  have 
historical  names  ?  It  throws  round  them  the  spell  of 
romance,  and  sets  the  imagination  to  work. 

Louis  Phelyppeaux,  Count  Pontchartrain,  a  minister 
and  chancellor  of  France,  was  the  grandson  of  a  minis- 
ter. He  was  a  man  remarkable  for  his  talents  and 
erudition.  His  integrity  was  proverbial,  and  his  en- 
lightened and  inflexible  administration  of  justice  is 
found  recorded  in  all  the  annals  of  the  time.  When 
he  was  appointed  to  the  exalted  office  of  Chancellor  of 
France,  Louis  the  XlVth,  on  administering  to  him  the 
required  oath,  said,  "  Sir,  I  regret  that  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  bestow  upon  you  a  higher  office,  as  a  proof 
of  my  esteem  for  your  talents,  and  of  my  gratitude  for 
your  services." 

Pontchartrain  patronized  letters  with  great  zeal,  and 
during  his  long-  career,  was  the  avowed  friend  of 
Boileau  and  of  J.  B.  Rousseau,  the  poet.  He  was  of  a 
very  diminutive  size,  but  very  well  shaped,  and  had 
that  lean  and  hungry  look  which  Caesar  did  not  like  in 
Cassius.  His  face  was  one  of  the  most  expressive,  and 
his  eyes  were  lighted  up  with  incessant  scintillations, 
denoting  the  ebullitions  of  wit  within.  If  his  features 
promised  a  great  deal,  his  mind  did  more  than  redeem 
the  physical  pledge.  There  is  no  question,  however 
abstruse,  which  he  did  not  understand  as  if  by  intuition, 
and  his  capacity  for  labor  appeared  to  stretch  as  far  as 
the  limits  allotted  to  human  nature.  He  was  constitu- 
tionally indefatigable  in  all  his  pursuits  ;  and  his  knowl- 
edge of  men,  which  was  perhaps  superior  to  all  his 
other  qualifications,  remarkable  as  they  were,  greatly 
helped  his  iron  will  in  the  successful  execution  of  its 


42  PONTCHARTRAIff. 

conceptions.  But,  although  lie  knew  mankind  thorough- 
ly, he  did  not  assume  the  garb  of  misanthropy.  On 
the  contrary,  his  manners  spoke  of  a  heart  overflowing 
with  the  milk  of  human  benevolence ;  and  his  conver- 
sation, which  was  alternately  replete  with  deep  learn- 
ing, or  sparkling  with  vivacity  and  repartee,  was 
eagerly  sought  after.  If,  on  matters  of  mere  business, 
he  astonished,  by  the  clearness  of  his  judgment  and  his 
rapidity  of  conception,  those  he  had  to  deal  with,  he  no 
less  delighted  those  with  whom  he  associated  in  his 
lighter  hours,  by  his  mild  cheerfulness  and  by  his  collo- 
quial powers,  even  on  the  veriest  trifles.  No  man 
knew  better  than  he,  how  to  temper  the  high  dignity 
of  his  station  by  the  utmost  suavity  and  simplicity  of 
address.  Yet  in  that  man  who,  conscious  of  the  misery 
he  might  inflict,  was  so  guarded  in  his  expressions  that 
he  never  was  betrayed  into  an  unkind  one — in  that 
man,  in  whom  so  much  blandness  was  allied  to  so  much 
majesty  of  deportment — there  was  something  more 
dreaded  far  than  the  keenest  powers  of  sarcasm  in 
others.  It  was  a  smile,  peculiar  to  himself,  which  made 
people  inquire  with  anxiety,  not  what  Pontchartrain 
had  said,  but  how  Pontchartrain  had  smiled.  That 
smile  of  his  blasted  like  lightning  what  it  was  aimed  at ; 
it  operated  as  a  sentence  of  death,  and  did  such  execu- 
tion that  the  Pontchartrain  smile  became,  at  the  court 
of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  as  famous  as  the  Mortemart 
wit*  In  1714,  resisting  the  entreaties  of  the  king,  he 
resigned  his  chancellorship,  and  retiring  into  the  house 
of  a  religious  congregation  (Les  pretres  de  1'Oratoire) 
he  devoted  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  prayer,  reading, 
and  meditation. 

*  The  hereditary  wit  of  all  the  members  of  that  family,  male  or  female,  was 
marked  with  such  peculiar  pungency,  that  it  became  proverbial,  and  was  called 
the  Mortemart  wit 


MAUREPAS.  4:3 

Jean  Frederic  Phelyppeaux,  Count  Maurepas,  was 
the  son  of  Jerome  Phelyppeaux,  a  minister  and  secre- 
tary of  state,  and  the  grandson  of  Pontchartrain,  the 
chancellor.  At  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  was  appointed 
secretary  of  state,  and  in  1725,  in  his  twenty-fourth 
year,  became  minister.  This  remarkable  family  thus 
presented  an  uninterrupted  succession  of  ministers  for 
one  hundred  and  seventy-one  years.  The  obstinacy 
with  which  prosperity  clung  to  her  favorites  appeared 
so  strange  that  it  worked  upon  the  imagination  of  the 
superstitious,  or  of  the  ignorant,  and  was  attributed  at 
the  time  to  some  unholy  compact  and  to  the  protection 
of  supernatural  beings.  Cradled  in  the  lap  of  power, 
Maurepas  exhibited  in  his  long  career  all  the  defects 
which  are  usually  observed  to  grow  with  the  growth  of 
every  spoiled  child  of  fortune.  He  was  as  capricious  as 
the  wind,  and  as  light  as  the  feather  with  which  it  de- 
lights to  gambol.  The  frivolity  of  his  character  was 
such  that  it  could  not  be  modified  even  by  extreme  old 
age.  Superficial  in  every  thing,  he  was  incapable  of 
giving  any  serious  attention  to  such  matters  as  would, 
from  their  very  nature,  command  the  deep  considera- 
tion of  most  men.  Perhaps  he  relied  too  much  on  his 
prodigious  facility  of  perception,  and  on  a  mind  so 
gifted,  that  it  could,  in  an  instant,  unravel  the  knots  of 
the  most  complicated  affair.  In  the  king's  council, 
his  profound  knowledge  of  men  and  of  the  court,  a  sort 
of  hereditary  ministerial  training  to  business,  imperfect 
as  it  was,  enabled  him  to  conceal  to  a  certain  degree  his 
lamentable  deficiency  of  study  and  of  meditation..  As 
it  were  by  instinct,  if  not  by  the  diviner's  rod,  he  could 
stamp  on  the  ground  and  point  out  where  the  fruits 
of  the  earth  lay  concealed ;  but  instead  of  using  the 
spade  and  mattock  in  search  of  the  treasure,  he  would 
run  after  the  first  butterfly  that  caught  his  eye.  To 


44:  MAUREPAS. 

reconcile  men  to  his  imperfections,  nature  had  given 
him  a  bewitching  sweetness  of  temper,  which  was  never 
found  wanting.  Urbane,  supple,  and  insinuating  in 
his  manners,  he  was  as  pliant  as  a  reed :  fertile  in 
courtly  stratagems,  expert  in  laying  out  traps,  pitfalls, 
and  ambuscades  for  his  enemies,  he  was  equally  skillful 
in  the  art  of  attack  and  defense,  and  no  Proteus  could 
assume  more  varied  shapes  to  elude  the  grasp  of  his 
adversaries.  There  was  no  wall  to  which  he  could  be 
driven,  where  he  could  not  find  an  aperture  through 
which  to  make  his  escape.  No  hunted  deer  ever  sur- 
passed him  in  throwing  out  the  intricate  windings  of 
his  flight,  to  mislead  his  sagacious  pursuers.  Where  he 
unexpectedly  found  himself  stared  in  the  face  by  some 
affair,  the  serious  complexion  of  which  he  did  not  like, 
he  would  exorcise  the  apparition  away  by  a  profuse 
sprinkling  of  witty  jests,  calculated  to  lessen  the  im- 
portance of  the  hated  object,  or  to  divert  from  it  the 
attention  of  persons  interested  in  its  examination.  No 
Ulysses  could  be  more  replete  than  he  with  expedients 
to  extricate  himself  out  of  all  difficulties ;  but  the  mo- 
ment he  was  out  of  danger,  he  would  throw  himself 
down,  panting  with  his  recent  efforts,  and  think  of 
nothing  else  than  to  luxuriate  on  the  couch  of  re- 
pose, or  to  amuse  himself  with  trifles. 

Maurepas,  in  more  than  one  respect,  was  made  up 
of  contrarieties,  a  living  antithesis  in  flesh  and  blood,  a 
strange  compound  of  activity  and  indolence  that  puzzled 
the  world.  Upon  the  whole,  he  was  generally  thought 
to  be,  by  superficial  observers,  a  harmless,  good-natured, 
easy  sort  of  man.  But  withal,  in  spite  of  his  habitual 
supineness,  he  could  rival  the  lynx,  when  he  applied 
the  keenness  of  his  eye  to  detect  the  weak,  ridiculous, 
or  contemptible  parts  in  the  formation  of  his  fellow- 
beings  :  and  no  spider  could  weave  such  an  impercept- 


MAUREPAS.  45 

ible  but  certain  web  around  those  court  flies  he  wanted 
to  destroy,  or  to  use  to  his  own  purposes.  He  was 
born  a  trifler,  but  one  of  a  redoubtable  nature,  and 
from  his  temperament  as  well  as  from  his  vicious  educa- 
tion, there  was  nothing  so  respected,  so  august,  or  even 
so  awful,  as  not  to  be  laughed  or  scoffed  at  by  him. 
There  was  no  merit,  no  virtue,  no  generous,  no  moral 
or  religious  belief  or  faith  in  any  thing,  that  he  would 
not  deride,  and  he  would  sneer  even  at  himself,  or  at 
his  own  family,  with  the  same  relish,  when  the  mood 
came  upon  him.  Yet,  worthless  as  that  man  was  in  his 
private  and  public  character,  he  had  such  a  peculiar 
turn  for  throwing  the  rich  glow  of  health  around  what 
was  most  rotten  in  the  state ;  he  could  present  to  his 
master  and  to  his  colleagues  the  dryest  matter  under 
such  an  enlivening  aspect,  when  they  met  in  the  coun- 
cil-chamber ;  he  could  render  apparently  so  simple  what 
seemed  so  complicated  as  to  require  the  most  arduous 
labor;  and  he  could  solve  the  most  difficult  political 
problem  with  such  ease,  that  it  looked  like  magic,  and 
made  him  the  most  fascinating  of  ministers. 

For  such  a  king  as  Louis  the  XVth,  who  felt  with 
great  sensitiveness  any  thing  that  disturbed  the  volup- 
tuous tranquillity  which  was  the  sole  object  of  his  life, 
Maurepas,  as  a  minister,  had  a  most  precious  quality. 
Born  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  court,  he  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  his  native  element,  and  excelled  in 
hushing  that  low  buzzing  of  discontent,  so  disagreeable 
to  a  monarch,  which  arises  from  the  unsatisfied  ambi- 
tion, the  jealousy,  and  the  quarrels  of  his  immediate 
attendants.  None  knew  better  than  Maurepas  the 
usages  and  secrets  of  the  court,  and  how  to  reconcile 
the  conflicting  interests  of  those  great  families  that 
gravitate  round  the  throne.  He  knew  exactly  what 
was  due  to  every  one,  either  for  personal  merit  or  for 


46  MAUREPAS. 

ancestral  distinction.  His  was  the  art  to  nip  in  the 
Imd  all  factions  or  cabals,  to  stifle  the  grumblings  of 
discontent,  or  to  lull  the  murmurs  of  offended  pride. 
He  knew  how  to  make  the  grant  of  a  favor  doubly 
precious  by  the  manner  in  which  it  was  offered ;  and 
the  bitterness  of  refusal  was  either  sweetened  by  assu- 
rances of  regret  and  of  personal  devotion,  or  by  a  happy 
mixture  of  reasoning  and  pleasantry,  which,  if  it  did 
not  convince  the  mind,  forced  disappointment  itself  to 
smile  at  its  own  bad  luck. 

With  all  his  faults,  such  a  minister  had  too  much  in- 
nate talent  not  to  do  some  good,  in  spite  of  his  frivolity. 
Thus,  he  made  great  improvements  and  embellish- 
ments in  the  city  of  Paris ;  he  infused  new  life  into  the 
marine  department,  corrected  many  abuses,  visited  all 
the  harbors  and  arsenals,  sent  officers  to  survey  all  the 
coasts  of  France,  had  new  maps  made,  established 
nautical  schools,  and  ordered  the  expeditions  of  learned 
men  to  several  parts  of  the  world.  Geometers  and 
astronomers,  according  to  his  instructions,  went  to  the 
equator  and  near  the  boreal  pole,  to  measure,  at  the 
same  time  and  by  a  concurrent  operation,  two  degrees 
of  the  meridian.  Thus,  La  Condamine,  Bouguer,  Godin, 
Maupertuis,  Clairaut,  and  Lemonnier,  were  indebted  to 
him  for  their  celebrity.  Also,  in  obedience  to  his  com- 
mands, Sevin  and  Fourmont  visited  Greece  and  several 
provinces  of  the  East;  others  surveyed  Mesopotamia 
and  Persia,  and  Jussieu  departed  to  study  the  botany 
of  Peru. 

That  frivolous  minister  did,  through  nis  strong  natu- 
ral sagacity,  partially  discover  that  commerce  ought  to 
be  unshackled,  and  withdrew  from  the  India  Company 
the  monopoly  of  the  coffee  trade  and  of  the  slave  trade. 
By  such  a  wise  measure,  he  largely  contributed  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  French  colonies.  But,  in  such  an  ele- 


MAUREPAS.  47 

vated  region  of  thought,  conception,  and  action,  Maure- 
pas  was  too  boyish  to  remain  long.  He  would  confide 
the  labors  of  his  office  to  those  whom  it  was  his  duty  to 
guide,  and  would  steal  away  to  the  balls  of  the  opera, 
or  to  every  sort  of  dissipation.  If  he  remained  in  the 
cabinet  destined  to  his  official  occupations,  it  was  not  to 
think  and  to  act  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  minister, 
but  to  write  lampoons,  scurrilous  drolleries,  and  facetious 
obscenities.  He  took  a  share  in  the  composition  of  sev- 
eral licentious  pieces,  well  suited  to  the  taste  and 
morals  of  the  time,  and  contributed  to  one  which  at- 
tracted some  attention,  under  the  title  of  The  Ballet  of 
the  Turkeys.  These  things  were  not,  for  him,  the  result 
of  a  momentary  debauch  of  the  mind,  but  matters  of 
serious  occupation  and  pursuit.  Such  a  relish  did  he 
find  in  this  pastime,  which  would  be  called  childish  if 
it  had  not  been  tainted  with  immorality,  that  it  took 
the  mastery  over  his  prudence,  and  he  had  the  indis- 
cretion to  write  a  lampoon  on  the  physical  charms  of 
the  Marquise  de  Pompadour,  the  acknowledged  favorite 
of  Louis  the  XVth.  The  pruriency  of  his  wit  cost  him 
his  place,  and  in  1749,  after  having  been  a  minister 
twenty-four  years,  he  was  exiled  to  the  city  of  Bourges, 
and  afterward  permitted  to  reside  at  his  Chateau  de 
Pontchartrain,  near  Paris.  There,  his  princely  fortune 
allowed  him  to  live  in  splendor,  and  to  attach  a  sort  of 
mimic  court  to  his  person.  He  appeared  to  bear  his 
fall  with  philosophical  indifference,  observing  that,  on 
the  first  day  of  his  dismissal,  lie  felt  sore  ;  but  that  on 
the  next,  he  was  entirely  consoled. 

On  the  death  of  Louis  the  XVth,  his  successor  sent 
for  Maurepas,  to  put  him  at  the  helm  of  that  royal  ship, 
destined  soon  to  be  dashed  to  pieces  in  that  tremendous 
storm  which  might  be  seen  gathering  from  the  four 
quarters  of  the  horizon.  The  unfortunate  Louis  could 


48  MAUREPAS. 

not  have  made  a  poorer  choice.  Maurepas  had  sagacity 
enough  to  discover  the  coming  events,  but  he  was  not 
the  man,  even  if  the  power  had  been  in  his  hands,  to 
prepare  for  the  struggle  with  those  gigantic  evils, 
whose  shadow  he  could  see  already  darkening  the  face 
of  his  country.  Such  an  attempt  would  have  interfered 
with  his  delightful  suppers  and  disturbed  his  sleep; 
and  to  the  Cassandras  of  that  epoch,  the  egotistical  old 
man  used  to  reply  with  a  sneer  and  a  shrug  of  his 
shoulders,  "  The  present  organization  of  things  will  last 
as  long  as  I  shall,  and  why  should  I  look  beyond !" 
This  observation  was  in  keeping  with  the  whole  tenor 
of  his  life  ;  and,  true  to  the  system  which  he  had  adopt- 
ed, if  he  lived  and  died  in  peace,  what  did  he  care  for 
the  rest  ?  He  had  no  children,  and  when  he  married 
in  all  the  vigor  of  youth,  those  who  knew  him  inti- 
mately, predicted  that  the  bridal  bed  would  remain 
barren.  The  prediction  proved  true,  and  had  not  re- 
quired any  extraordinary  powers  of  divination.  Is  it 
astonishing  that  the  lineal  descendant  of  a  succession 
of  ministers  should  be  without  virility  of  mind,  soul,  or 
body  ?  What  herculean  strength,  what  angel  purity 
would  have  resisted  the  deleterious  influence  of  such  an 
atmosphere,  working,  for  nearly  two  centuries,  slow  but 
sure  mischief,  from  generation  to  generation  ? 

After  having  been  a  minister  for  six  years  under 
Louis  the  XVIth,  Maurepas  died  in  ITS  1.  So  infatu- 
ated was  the  king  with  his  octogenarian  minister,  that 
he  had  insisted  upon  his  occupying,  at  the  Palace  of 
Versailles,  an  apartment  above  his  own  royal  chamber ; 
and  every  morning,  the  first  thing  that  the  king  did, 
was  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  minister.  Pleasant  those  visits 
were,  because  the  wily  old  minister  presented  every 
thing  to  his  young  master  under  the  most  glowing  col- 
ors, and  made  him  believe  that  his  almost  centenarian 


LAKE  BORGNE.  49 

experience  would  smooth  the  rugged  path  that  extended 
before  him.  If  parliaments  rebelled,  if  fleets  were  de- 
feated, if  provinces  were  famished,  Maurepas  had  no 
unpalatable  truths  to  say.  Only  once,  the  eaves-drop- 
pers heard  his  voice  raised  above  its  usual  soft  tone. 
What  frightful  convulsion  of  nature  could  have  pro- 
duced such  a  change  ?  None  but  the  death  of  a  cat ! 
Distracted  with  the  shrieks  of  his  wife,  whose  trouble- 
some four-footed  favorite,  interfering  with  the  king 
when  engaged  in  his  darling  occupation  of  a  black- 
smith, had  been  killed  by  an  angry  blow  of  the  royal 
hammer,  he  loudly  expostulated  with  the  murderer  for 
the  atrociousness  of  the  deed.  What  must  have  been 
his  dread  of  his  wife,  when  under  the  cabalistic  influ- 
ence of  her  frowns,  such  a  courtier  could  so  completely 
drop  the  prudential  policy  of  his  whole  life,  as  to  ven- 
ture to  show  displeasure  to  the  king ! 

When  Maurepas  died,  the  king  shed  tears,  and  said 
with  a  faltering  voice,  "  Alas !  in  the  morning,  for  the 
future,  when  I  shall  wake  up,  no  longer  shall  I  hear  the 
grateful  sound  to  which  I  was  used — the  slow  pacing 
of  my  friend  in  the  room  above  mine."  Very  .little  de- 
serving of  this  testimonial  of  friendship  was  he,  who 
never  loved  any  thing  in  this  world  but  himself. 

So  much  for  Pontchartrain  and  Maurepas,  who  have 
given  their  names  to  those  beautiful  lakes  which  are 
in  the  vicinity  of  New  Orleans.  From  Lake  Pontchar- 
train, Iberville  arrived  at  a  sheet  of  water  which  is 
known  in  our  days  under  the  name  of  Lake  Borgne. 
The  French,  thinking  that  it  did  not  answer  precisely 
the  definition  of  a  lake,  because  it  was  not  altogether 
land-locked,  or  did  not  at  least  discharge  its  waters  only 
through  a  small  aperture,  and  because  it  looked  rather 
like  a  part  of  the  sea,  separated  from  its  main  body 
by  numerous  islands,  called  it  Lake  Borgne,  meaning 

D 


50  ST.  LOUIS. 

something  incomplete  or  defective,  like   a  man  with 
one  eye. 

On  that  lake,  there  is  a  beautiful  bay,  to  which  Iber- 
ville  gave  the  patronymic  name  of  St.  Louis.  Of  a 
more  lofty  one  no  place  can  boast  under  the  broad 
canopy  of  heaven. 

/  Louis  the  IXth,  son  of  Louis  the  VHIth  of  France, 
Uand  of  Blanche  of  Castile,  was  the  incarnation  of  vir- 
itue,  and,  what  is  more  extraordinary,  of  virtue  born  on 
the  throne,  and  preserving  its  divine  purity  in  spite  of 
all  the  temptations  of  royal  power.  In  vain  would 
history  be  taxed  to  produce  a  character  worthy  of 
being  compared  with  one  so  pure.  Among  heroes,  he 
must  certainly  be  acknowledged  as  one  of  the  greatest ; 
among  inonarchs,  he  must  be  ranked  as  the  most  just ; 
and  among  men,  as  the  most  modest.  For  such  per- 
fection, he  was  indebted  to  his  mother,  who,  from  his 
earliest  days,  used  to  repeat  to  him  this  solemn  admo- 
nition :  "  My  son,  remember  that  I  had  rather  see  you 
dead  than  offending  your  God  by  the  commission  of  a 
deadly  sin."  When  he  assumed  the  government  of  his 
kingdom,  he  showed  that  his  talents  for  administration 
were  equal  to  his  virtues  as  a  man.  Every  measure 
which  he  adopted  during  peace,  had  a  happy  tendency 
toward  the  moral  and  physical' improvement  of  his  sub- 
jects, and  in  war  he  proved  that  he  was  not  deficient 
in  those  qualifications  which  constitute  military  genius. 
He  defeated  Henry  the  Hid  of  England  at  the  battle 
of  Taillebourg  in  Poitou,  where  he  achieved  prodigies 
of  valor.  He  gained  another  decisive  victory  at  Saintes 
over  the  English  monarch,  to  whom  he  granted  a  truce 
of  five  years,  on  his  paying  to  France  five  thousand 
pounds  sterling. 

Unfortunately,  the  piety  of  the  king  making  him 
forgetful  of  what  was  due  to  the  temporal  welfare  of 


ST.  LOUIS.  51 

his  subjects,  drove  him  into  one  of  those  crusades, 
which  the  cold  judgment  of  the  statesman  may  blame, 
but  at  which  the  imagination  of  the  lover  of  romance 
will  certainly  not  repine.  In  1249,  Louis  landed  in 
Egypt,  took  the  city  of  Damietta,  and  advanced  as  far 
as  Massourah.  But  after  several  victories,  whereby  he 
lost  the  greater  part  of  his  army,  he  was  reduced  to 
shut  himself  up  in  his  camp,  where  famine  and  pesti- 
lence so  decimated  the  feeble  remnant  of  his  forces, 
that  he  was  constrained  to  surrender  to  the  host  of 
enemies  by  whom  he  was  enveloped.  He  might  have 
escaped,  however;  but  to  those  who  advised  him  to 
consult  his  own  personal  safety,  he  gave  this  noble  an- 
swer :  "  I  must  share  in  life  or  in  death  the  fate  of  my 
companions." 

The  Sultan  had  offered  to  his  prisoner  to  set  him 
free,  on  condition  that  he  would  give  up  Damietta  and 
pay  one  hundred  thousand  silver  marks.  Louis  re- 
plied, that  a  king  of  France  never  ransomed  himself 
for  money ;  but  that  he  would  yield  Damietta  in  ex- 
change for  his  own  person,  and  pay  one  hundred  thou- 
sand silver  marks  in  exchange  for  such  of  his  subjects 
as  were  prisoners.  Such  was  the  course  of  negotiation 
between  the  two  sovereigns,  when  it  was  suddenly  ar- 
rested by  the  murder  of  the  Sultan,  who  fell  a  victim 
to  the  unruly  passions  of  his  janizaries.  They  had 
rebelled  against  their  master,  for  having  attempted  to 
subject  them  to  a  state  of  discipline  irksome  to  their 
habits  and  humiliating  to  their  lawless  pride.  Some  of 
those  ruffians  penetrated  into  the  prison  of  Louis,  and 
one  of  them,  presenting  him  with  the  gory  head  of  the 
Sultan,  asked  the  French  monarch  what  reward  he 
would  grant  him  for  the  destruction  of  his  enemy.  A 
haughty  look  of  contempt  was  the  only  answer  vouch- 
safed by  Louis.  Enraged  at  this  manifestation  of  dis- 


52  ST.  LOUIS. 

pleasure,  the  assassin  lifted  up  his  dagger,  and  aiming  it 
at  the  king's  breast,  exclaimed,  "  Dub  me  a  knight,  or 
die!"  Louis  replied  with  indignation,  "Kepent,  and 
turn  Christian,  or  fly  hence,  base  infidel !"  When  utter- 
ing these  words,  Louis  had  risen  from  his  seat,  and  with 
an  arm  loaded  with  chains  had  pointed  to  the  door, 
waving  the  barbarian  away  with  as  much  majesty  of 
command  as  if  he  had  been  seated  on  his  throne  in  his 
royal  palace  of  the  Louvre.  Abashed  at  the  rebuke, 
and  overawed  by  the  Olympian  expression  of  the  mon- 
arch's face,  the  Saracen  skulked  away,  and  said  to  his 
companions,  when  he  returned  to  them,  "  I  have  just 
seen  the  proudest  Christian  that  has  yet  come  to  the 
East!" 

After  many  obstacles,  a  treaty  of  peace  was  at  last 
concluded :  Louis  and  his  companions  were  liberated ; 
the  Saracens  received  from  the  French  eight  hundred 
thousand  marks  of  silver,  and  recovered  the  city  of 
Damietta.  But  they  authorized  Louis  to  take  posses- 
sion of  all  the  places  in  Palestine  which  had  been 
wrested  from  the  Christians,  and  to  fortify  them  as  he 
pleased. 

When  the  king  landed  in  France,  the  joy  of  his  sub- 
jects was  such,  that  they  appeared  to  be  seized  with 
the  wildest  delirium.  On  his  way  from  the  sea-coast 
to  Paris,  he  was  met  by  throngs  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  who  rushed  at  him  with  the  most  frantic 
shrieks,  and  kissed  his  feet  and  the  hem  of  his  gar- 
ments, as  if  he  had  been  an  angel  dropped  from  heaven 
to  give  them  the  assurance  of  eternal  felicity.  These 
testimonials  of  gratitude,  extreme  as  they  may  appear, 
were  not  more  than  he  deserved.  He  who  used  to  say 
to  his  proud  nobles,  "  Our  serfs  belong  to  Christ,  our 
common  master,  and  in  a  Christian  kingdom  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  we  are  all  brothers,"  must  indeed 


ST.  LOUIS.  53 

have  been  beloved  by  the  people  !  How  could  it  be 
otherwise,  when  they  saw  him  repeatedly  visiting  every 
part  of  his  dominions,  to  listen  to  the  complaints  of  his 
meanest  subjects!  They  knew  that  he  used  to  sit,  at 
Vincennes,  under  a  favorite  oak,  which  has  become 
celebrated  from  that  circumstance,  and  there  loved, 
with  august  simplicity,  to  administer  justice  to  high 
and  low.  It  was  there  that  he  rendered  judgment 
against  his  own  brother,  Le  Comte  d'Anjou;  it  was 
there  that  he  forced  one  of  his  most  powerful  barons, 
Enguerrand  de  Coucy,  to  bow  to  the  majesty  of  the 
law.  It  was  he  whose  enlightened  piety  knew  how  to 
check  the  unjust  pretensions  of  his  clergy,  and  to  keep 
them  within  those  bounds  which  they  were  so  prone  to 
overleap.  It  was  he  who  contented  himself  with  re- 
torting to  those  who  railed  at  his  pious  and  laborious 
life,  "  If  I  gave  to  hunting,  to  gambling,  to  tournaments, 
and  to  every  sort  of  dissipation,  the  moments  which  I 
devote  to  prayer  and  meditation,  I  should  not  be  found 
fault  with." 

Louis  undertook  a  second  Crusade ;  and  having  en- 
camped on  the  site  of  old  Carthage,  prepared  to  com- 
mence the  siege  of  Tunis,  to  which  it  is  almost  contigu- 
ous. There,  privations  of  every  sort,  incessant  fatigue, 
and  the  malignant  influence  of  the  climate,  produced 
an  epidemical  disease,  which  rapidly  destroyed  the 
strength  of  his  army.  His  most  powerful  barons  and 
most  skillful  captains  died  in  a  few  days ;  his  favorite 
son,  the  Count  de  Nevers,  expired  in  his  arms ;  his  eld- 
est born,  the  presumptive  heir  to  the  crown,  had  be^en 
attacked  by  the  pestilence,  and  was  struggling  against 
death,  in  a  state  of  doubtful  convalescence;  when,  to 
increase  the  dismay  of  the  French,  Louis  himself  caught 
the  infection.  Aware  of  approaching  death,  he  ordered 
himself  to  be  stretched  on  ashes ;  wishing,  he,  the  great 


54:  ST.  LOUIS. 

king,  to  die  with  all  the  humility  of  a  Christian.  At 
the  foot  of  his  bed  of  ashes,  stood  a  large  cross,  bearing 
the  image  of  the  crucified  Savior,  upon  which  he  loved 
to  rest  his  eyes,  as  on  the  pledge  of  his  future  salvation. 
Around  him,  the  magnates  of  France  and  his  own  im- 
mediate attendants  knelt  on  the  ground,  which  they 
bathed  with  tears,  and  addressed  to  Heaven  the  most 
fervent  prayers  for  the  recovery  of  the  precious  life 
which  was  threatened  with  sudden  extinguishment. 

Out  of  the  royal  tent,  grief  was  not  less  expressive. 
The  silence  of  despair,  made  more  solemn  by  occasional 
groans,  reigned  absolute  over  the  suffering  multitude 
that  had  agglomerated  on  the  accursed  Numidian 
shore ;  and  the  whole  army,  distracted,  as  it  were,  at 
the  danger  which  menaced  its  august  head,  seemed  to 
have  been  struck  with  palsy  by  the  horror  of  its  situa- 
tion. The  dying  were  hardly  attended  to,  so  much  en- 
grossed were  their  attendants  by  heavier  cares;  and 
even  they,  the  dying,  were  satisfied  to  perish,  since 
they  thus  escaped  the  bitterness  of  their  present  fate ; 
and  their  loss  elicited  no  expression  of  regret  from  their 
survivors,  so  much  absorbed  were  they  by  the  fear  of  a 
greater  misfortune  to  them  and  to  France.  There  ap- 
peared to  be  a  sort  of  frightful  harmony  between  the 
surrounding  objects  and  the  human  sufferings  to  which 
they  formed  an  appropriate  frame.  The  winds  seemed 
to  have  departed  forever  from  the  earth;  the  atmo- 
sphere had  no  breath ;  and  the  air  almost  condensed 
itself  into  something  palpable  ;  it  fell  like  molten  lead 
upon  the  lungs  which  it  consumed.  The  motionless 
sea  was  smoothed  and  glassed  into  a  mirror  reflecting 
the  heat  of  the  lurid  sun :  it  looked  dead.  Beasts  of 
prey,  hyenas,  jackals,  and  wolves,  attracted  by  the  nox- 
ious effluvia  which  issued  from  the  camp,  filled  the  ears 
with  their  dismal  howlings.  From  the  deep  blue  sky, 


ST.  LOUIS.  55 

there  came  no  refreshing  shower,  but  shrieks  of  hungry 
vultures,  glancing  down  at  the  feast  prepared  for  them, 
and  screaming  with  impatience  at  the  delay.  The  en- 
emy himself  had  retreated  to  a  distance,  from  fear  of 
the  contagion,  and  had  ceased  those  hostilities  which 
used  momentarily  to  relieve  the  minds  of  the  French 
from  the  contemplation  of  their  situation.  They  were 
reduced  to  such  a  pitch  of  misery  as  to  regret  that  no 
human  foes  disturbed  the  solitude  where  they  were 
slowly  perishing ;  and  their  eyes  were  fixed  in  unutter- 
able woe  on  those  broken  pyramids,  those  mutilated 
columns,  those  remnants  of  former  ages,  of  faded  glo- 
ries, on  those  eloquent  ruins,  which,  long  before  the 
time  when  they  sheltered  Marius,  spoke  of  nothing  but 
past,  present,  and  future  miseries. 

Such  was  the  scene  which  awaited  Louis  on  his 
death-bed.  It  was  enough  to  strike  despair  into  the 
boldest  heart,  but  he  stood  it  unmoved.  A  perpetual 
smile,  such  as  grace  only  the  lips  of  the  blessed,  en- 
livened his  face ;  he  looked  round  not  only  without 
dismay,  but  with  an  evangelical  serenity  of  soul.  He 
knew  well  that  the  apparent  evils  which  he  saw,  were 
a  mere  passing  trial,  inflicted  for  the  benefit  of  the  suf- 
ferers, and  for  some  goodly  purpose ;  he  knew  that  this 
transitory  severity  was  the  wise  device  of  infinite  and 
eternal  benignity,  and  therefore,  instead  of  repining,  he 
thanked  God  for  the  chastisement  which  served  only  to 
hasten  the  coming  reward.  The  vision  of  the  Christian 
extends  beyond  the  contracted  sphere  of  the  sufferings 
of  humanity,  and  sees  the  crowning  mercies  that  attend 
the  disembodied  spirits  in  a  better  world. 

By  the  manner  in  which  Louis  died,  this  was  strik- 
ingly illustrated.  Calm  and  collected,  after  having  dis- 
tributed words  of  encouragement  to  all  that  could  ap- 
proach him,  he  summoned  his  son  and  successor  to  his 


56  ST.  LOUIS. 

bedside,  and  laying  his  hands  on  his  head  to  bless  him, 
he  bid  him  a  short  and  an  impressive  farewell.  "  My 
son !"  said  he,  "  I  die  in  peace  with  the  world  and  with 
myself,  warring  only  against  the  enemies  of  our  holy 
faith.  As  a  Christian,  I  have  lived  in  the  fear,  and  I 
depart  in  the  hope  of  God.  As  a  man,  I  have  never 
wasted  a  thought  on  my  own  perishable  body ;  and  in 
obedience  to  the  command  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christus^ 
I  have  always  forgotten  my  own  worldly  interest  to 
promote  that  of  others.  As  a  king,  I  have  considered 
myself  as  my  subjects'  servant,  and  not  my  subjects  as 
mine.  If,  as  a  Christian,  as  a  man,  and  as  a  king,  I 
have  erred  and  sinned,  it  is  unwillingly  and  in  good 
faith,  and  therefore,  I  trust  for  mercy  in  my  heavenly 
Father,  and  in  the  protection  of  the  Holy  Virgin.  So 
I  have  lived — do  thou  likewise.  Follow  an  example 
which  secures  to  me  such  a  sweet  death  amid  such 
scenes  of  horror.  Thou  shalt  find  in  my  written  will, 
such  precepts  as  my  experience  and  my  affection  for 
thee  and  for  my  subjects  have  devised  for  thy  guidance 
and  for  their  benefit.  And  now,  my  son,  farewell! 
This  life,  as  thou  knowest,  is  a  mere  state  of  probation ; 
hence,  do  not  repine  at  our  short  separation.  Blessed 
be  thou  here,  and  in  heaven,  where  I  hope  to  meet  thee 
in  everlasting  bliss.  So  help  me  God !  In  the  name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
Amen !''  Thus  saying,  he  devoutly  crossed  himself, 
looked  upward,  and  exclaimed:  "Introibo  in  domum 
tuam,  adorabo  ad  templum  sanctum  tuum."  These 
were  his  last  words.  During  his  life,  he  was  emphat- 
ically the  Christian  king :  shortly  after  his  death,  he 
was  canonized  by  the  church,  and  became  a  saint. 

In  spite  of  these  circumstances,  which  must  have 
been  hateful  to  Voltaire's  turn  of  mind,  the  recollection 
of  such  exalted  virtue  extorted  from  that  celebrated 


BAY  OF  BILOXI.  57 

writer  a  eulogy  which  is  doubly  flattering  to  the  mem- 
ory of  him  to  whom  the  tribute  is  paid,  if  the  source 
from  which  it  came  be  considered.  That  arch  scoffer, 
that  systematic  disbeliever  in  so  much  of  what  is  held 
sacred  by  mankind,  said  of  St.  Louis,  "  That  prince 
would  have  reformed  Europe,  if  reformation  had  been 
possible  at  that  time.  He  increased  the  power,  pros- 
perity, and  civilization  of  France,  and  showed  himself  a 
type  of  human  perfection.  To  the  piety  of  an  anchor- 
ite, he  joined  all  the  virtues  of  a  king ;  and  he  practiced 
a  wise  system  of  economy,  without  ceasing  to  be  liberal. 
Although  a  profound  politician,  he  never  deviated  from 
what  he  thought  strictly  due  to  right  and  justice,  and 
he  is  perhaps  the  sole  sovereign  to  whom  such  com- 
mendation can  be  applied.  Prudent  and  firm  in  the 
deliberations  of  the  cabinet,  distinguished  for  cool  intre- 
pidity in  battle,  as  humane  as  if  he  had  been  familiar 
with  nothing  else  but  misery,  he  carried  human  virtue 
as  far  as  it  can  be  expected  to  extend." 

Thus,  it  is  seen  that  the  Bay  of  St.  Louis  could  not 
borrow  a  nobler  name  than  that  under  which  it  is  des- 
ignated. The  magnificent  oaks  which  decorate  its 
shore  did  perhaps  remind  Iberville  of  the  oak  of  Vin- 
cennes,  and  to  that  circumstance  may  the  bay  be  in- 
debted for  its  appellation. 

From  the  Bay  of  St.  Louis,  Iberville  returned  to  his 
fleet,  where,  after  consultation,  he  determined  to  make 
a  settlement  at  the  Bay  of  Biloxi.  On  the  east  side,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  bay,  as  it  were,  there  is  a  slight 
swelling  of  the  shore,  about  four  acres  square,  sloping 
gently  to  the  woods  in  the  background,  and  on  the 
right  and  left  of  which,  two  deep  ravines  run  into  the 
bay.  Thus,  this  position  was  fortified  by  nature,  and 
the  French  skillfully  availed  themselves  of  these  ad- 
vantages. The  weakest  point,  which  was  on  the  side 


53  IBERVILLE'S  DEPARTURE  FOR  FRANCE. 

of  the  forest,  they  strengthened  with  more  care  than 
the  rest,  by •  connecting  with  a  strong  intrenchment  the 
two  ravines,  which  ran  to  the  bay  in  a  parallel  line  to 
each  other.  The  fort  was  constructed  with  four  bas- 
tions, and  was  armed  with  twelve  pieces  of  artillery. 
When  standing  on  one  of  the  bastions  which  faced  the 
bay,  the  spectator  enjoyed  a  beautiful  prospect.  On 
the  right,  the  bay  could  be  seen  running  into  the  land 
for  miles,  and  on  the  left  stood  Deer  Island,  concealing 
almost  entirely  the  broad  expanse  of  water  which  lay 
beyond.  It  was  visible  only  at  the  two  extreme  points 
of  the  island,  which  both,  at  that  distance,  appeared  to 
be  within  a  close  proximity  of  the  main  land.  No  bet- 
ter description  can  be  given,  than  to  say  that  the  bay 
looked  like  a  funnel,  to  which  the  island  was  the  lid, 
not  fitting  closely,  however,  but  leaving  apertures  for 
egress  and  ingress.  The  snugness  of  the  locality  had 
tempted  the  French,  and  had  induced  them  to  choose 
it  as  the  most  favorable  spot,  at  the  time,  for  coloniza- 
tion. Sau voile,  a  brother  of  Iberville,  was  put  in  com- 
mand of  the  fort,  and  Bienville,  the  youngest  of  the 
three  brothers,  was  appointed  his  lieutenant. 

A  few  huts  having  been  erected  round  the  fort,  the 
settlers  began  to  clear  the  land,  in  order  to  bring  it  into 
cultivation.  Iberville,  having  furnished  them  with  all 
the  necessary  provisions,  utensils,  and  other  supplies, 
prepared  to  sail  for  France.  How  deeply  affecting 
must  have  been  the  parting  scene  !  How  many  casual- 
ties might  prevent  those  who  remained  in  this  unknown 
region  from  ever  seeing  again  those  who,  through  the 
perils  of  such  a  long  voyage,  had  to  return  to  their 
home !  What  crowding  emotions  must  have  filled  up 
the  breast  of  Sauvolle,  Bienville,  and  their  handful  of 
companions,  when  they  beheld  the  sails  of  Iberville's 
fleet  fading  in  the  distance,  like  transient  clouds !  Well 


THE  COLAPISSAS.  59 

may  it  be  supposed  that  it  seemed  to  them  as  if  their 
very  souls  had  been  carried  away,  and  that  they  felt  a 
momentary  sinking  of  the  heart,  when  they  found  them- 
selves abandoned,  and  necessarily  left  to  their  own  re- 
sources, scanty  as  they  were,  on  a  patch  of  land,  be- 
tween the  ocean  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other,  a  wilder- 
ness, which  fancy  peopled  with  every  sort  of  terrors. 
The  sense  of  their  loneliness  fell  upon  them  like  the 
gloom  of  night,  darkening  their  hopes,  and  filling  their 
hearts  with  dismal  apprehensions. 

But  as  the  country  had  been  ordered  to  be  explored, 
Sauvolle  availed  himself  of  that  circumstance  to  refresh 
the  minds  of  his  men  by  the  excitement  of  an  expedi- 
tion into  the  interior  of  the  continent.  He  therefore 
hastened  to  dispatch  most  of  them  with  Bienville,  who, 
with  a  chief  of  the  Bayagoulas  for  his  guide,  went  to 
visit  the  Colapissas.  They  inhabited  the  northern 
shore  of  Lake  Pontchartrain,  and  their  domains  em- 
braced the  sites  now  occupied  by  Lewisburg,  Man- 
deville,  and  Fontainebleau.  That  tribe  numbered  three 
hundred  warriors,  who,  in  their  distant  hunting  excur- 
sions, had  been  engaged  in  frequent  skirmishes  with 
some  of  the  British  colonists  in  South  Carolina.  When 
the  French  landed,  they  were  informed  that,  two  days 
previous,  the  village  of  the  Colapissas  had  been  attack- 
ed by  a  party  of  two  hundred  Chickasaws,  headed  by 
two  Englishmen.  These  were  the  first  tidings  which 
the  French  had  of  their  old  rivals,  and  which  proved 
to  be  the  harbinger  of  the  incessant  struggle  which  was 
to  continue  for  more  than  a  century  between  the  two 
races,  and  to  terminate  by  the  permanent  occupation  of 
Louisiana  by  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

Bienville  returned  to  the  fort  to  convey  this  impor- 
tant information  to  Sauvolle.  After  having  rested 
there  for  several  days,  he  went  to  the  Bay  of  Pasca- 


60  THE  COLAPIS3AS. 

goulas,  and  ascended  the  river  which  bears  that  name, 
and  the  banks  of  which  were  tenanted  by  a  branch  of 
the  Biloxis,  and  by  the  Moelobites.'  Encouraged  by 
the  friendly  reception  which  he  met  Everywhere,  he 
ventured  farther,  and  paid  a  visit  to  the  Mobilians. 
who  entertained  him  with  great  hospitality.  Bienville 
found  them  much  reduced  from  what  they  had  been, 
and  listened  with  eagerness  to  the  many  tales  of  their 
former  power,  which  had  been  rapidly  declining  since 
the  crushing  blow  they  had  received  from  Soto. 

When  Iberville  ascended  the  Mississippi  the  first 
time,  he  had  remarked  Bayou  Plaquemines  and  Bayou 
Chetimachas.  The  one  he  called  after  the  fruit  of 
certain  trees  which  appeared  to  have  exclusive  pos- 
session of  its  banks,  and  the  other  after  the  name  of  the 
Indians  who  dwelt  in  the  vicinity.  He  had  ordered 
them  to  be  explored,  and  the  indefatigable  Bienville, 
on  his  return  from  Mobile,  obeyed  the  instructions  left 
to  his  brother,  and  made  an  accurate  survey  of  these 
two  Bayous.  When  he  was  coming  down  the  river,  at 
the  distance  of  about  eighteen  miles  below  the  site 
where  New  Orleans  now  stands,  he  met  an  English  ves- 
sel of  16  guns,  under  the  command  of  Captain  Bar. 
The  English  captain  informed  the  French  that  he  was 
examining  the  banks  of  the  river,  with  the  intention  of 
selecting  a  spot  for  the  foundation  of  a  colony.  Bien- 
ville told  him  that  Louisiana  was  a  dependency  of 
Canada;  that  the  French  had  already  made  several 
establishments  on  the  Mississippi ;  and  he  appealed,  in 
confirmation  of  his  assertions,  to  their  own  presence  in 
the  river,  in  such  small  boats,  which  evidently  proved 
the  existence  of  some  settlement  close  at  hand.  The 
Englishman  believed  Bienville,  and  sailed  back.  Where 
this  occurrence  took  place  the  river  makes  a  consider- 
able bend,  and  it  was  from  the  circumstance  which  I 


THE  ENGLISH  TURN— MISSIONARIES.  61 

liave  related  that  the  spot  received  the  appellation  of 
the  English  Turn — a  name  which  it  has  retained  to  the 
present  day.  It  was  not  far  from  that  place,  the  atmos- 
phere of  which  appears  to  be  fraught  with  some  malig- 
nant spell  hostile  to  the  sons  of  Albion,  that  the  Eng- 
lish, who  were  outwitted  by  Bienville  in  1699,  met 
with  a  signal  defeat  in  battle  from  the  Americans  in 
1815.  The  diplomacy  of  Bienville  and  the  military 
genius  of  Jackson  proved  to  them  equally  fatal,  when 
they  aimed  at  the  possession  of  Louisiana. 

Since  the  exploring  expedition  of  La  Salle  down  the 
Mississippi,  Canadian  hunters,  whose  habits  and  intre- 
pidity Fenimore  Cooper  has  so  graphically  described 
in  the  character  of  Leather-Stocking,  used  to  extend 
their  roving  excursions  to  the  banks  of  that  river ;  and 
those  holy  missionaries  of  the  church,  who,  as  the  pio- 
neers of  religion,  have  filled  the  New  World  with  their 
sufferings,  and  whose  incredible  deeds  in  the  service  of 
God  afford  so  many  materials  for  the  most  interesting 
of  books,  had  come  in  advance  of  the  pickaxe  of  the 
settler,  and  had  domiciliated  themselves  among  the 
tribes  who  lived  near  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi. 
One  of  them,  Father  Montigny,  was  residing  with  the 
Tensas,  within  the  territory  of  the  present  parish  of 
Tensas,  in  the  State  of  Louisiana,  and  another,  Father 
Davion,  was  the  pastor  of  the  Yazoos,  in  the  present 
State  of  Mississippi. 

Father  Montigny  was  a  descendant  from  Galon  de 
Montigny,  who  had  the  honor  of  bearing  the  banner  of 
France  at  the  battle  of  Bouvines.  It  is  well  known 
that  in  1214  a  league  of  most  of  the  European  princes, 
the  most  powerful  of  whom  were  the  King  of  England 
and  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  was  formed  against 
Philip  Augustus.  The  allied  army,  composed  of  one 
hundred  thousand  men,  and  the  French  army  muster- 


62  FATHER  MONTIGNY. 

ing  half  that  number,  met  at  Bouvines,  between  Lille 
and  Tournay.  Before  the  battle,  Philip  reviewed  his 
troops,  and  in  their  presence,  removing  his  crown  from 
his  temples,  said  to  the  assembled  host,  "  Peers,  barons, 
knights,  soldiers,  and  all  ye  that  listen  to  me,  if  you 
know  one  more  worthy  of  the  crown  of  France  than  I 
am,  you  may  award  it  to  him."  Shouts  of  enthusiasm 
declared  that  he  was  the  worthiest.  "  Well,  then," 
said  he,  "  help  me  to  keep  it."  The  battle  soon  began, 
and  raged  for  some  time  with  alternate  success  for  the 
belligerents.  To  the  long  gilded  pole  which  supported 
the  banner  of  Frarice,  and  towered  in  proud  majesty 
over  the  plain,  the  eyes  of  the  French  knights,  scattered 
over  the  wide  field  of  battle,  were  frequently  turned 
with  feverish  anxiety.  So  long  as  it  stood  erect,  and 
as  firmly  fixed  in  Montigny's  iron  grasp  as  if  it  had 
taken  root  in  the  soil,  they  knew  that  the  king  was 
safe,  it  being  the  duty  of  the  bearer  of  that  standard  to 
keep  close  to  the  royal  person,  and  never  to  lose  sight 
of  him.  It  was  an  arduous  and  a  perilous  duty,  which 
devolved  on  none  but  one  well  tried  among  the  bravest ; 
and  it  was  not  long  before  Montigny  had  to  plunge  into 
the  thickest  of  the  fight,  to  retain  his  post  near  Philip 
Augustus,  who  felt  on  that  trying  occasion,  when  his 
crown  was  at  stake,  that  the  king  was  bound  to  prove 
himself  the  best  knight  of  his  army. 

On  a  sudden,  a  cold  chill  ran  through  the  boldest 
heart  in  the  French  ranks.  The  long  stately  pole 
which  bore  the  royal  banner  was  observed  to  wave 
distressfully,  and  to  rock  like  the  mast  of  a  vessel 
tossed  on  a  tempestuous  sea.  That  fatal  signal  was 
well  known — it  meant  that  the  king  was  in  peril.  Sim- 
ultaneously, from  every  partof  the  field,  every  French 
knight,  turning  from  the  foe  he  had  in  front,  dashed 
headlong  away,  and  with  resistless  fury  forced  a  pas- 


FATHER  MONTIGNY.  63 

sage  to  the  spot  where  the  fate  of  France  was  held  in 
dubious  suspense.  One  minute  more  of  delay,  and  all 
would  have  been  lost.  The  king  had  been  unhorsed 
by  the  lance  of  a  German  knight,  trampled  under  the 
feet  of  the  chargers  of  the  combatants,  and  had  with 
difficulty  been  replaced  on  horseback.  Those  that 
came  at  last  to  the  rescue,  found  him  surrounded  by 
the  corpses  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  gentlemen  of 
the  best  blood  of  France,  who  had  died  in  his  defence. 
His  armor  was  shattered  to  pieces,  his  battle-axe,  from 
the  blows  which  it  had  given,  was  blunted  into  a  mere 
club,  and  his  arm,  waxing  faint,  could  hardly  parry  the 
blows  which  rained  upon  his  head.  Montigny  stood 
alone  by  him,  and  was  defending,  with  a  valor  worthy 
of  the  occasion,  the  flag  and  the  king  of  France.  That 
occasion,  indeed,  was  one,  if  any,  to  nerve  the  arm  of  a 
man,  and  to  madden  such  a  one  as  Montigny  into  the 
execution  of  prodigies. 

To  be  the  royal  standard-bearer,  to  fight  side  by  side 
with  his  king,  to  have  saved  him  perhaps  from  captivity 
or  death ;  such  were  the  proud  destinies  of  the  noble 
knight,  Galon  de  Montigny.  His  descendant's  lot  in 
life  was  an  humbler  one  in  the  estimation  of  the  world, 
but  perhaps  a  higher  one  in  that  of  heaven.  A  hood, 
not  a  crested  helmet,  covered  his  head,  and  he  was  sat- 
isfied with  being  a  soldier  in  the  militia  of  Christ.  But 
if,  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  duties  of  his  holy  faith, 
he  courted  dangers  and  even  coveted  tortures  with  he- 
roic fortitude — if,  in  the  cause  of  God,  he  used  his  spir- 
itual weapons  against  vice,  error  and  superstition,  with 
as  much  zeal  and  bravery  as  others  use  carnal  weapons 
in  earthly  causes — if,  instead  of  a  king's  life,  he  saved 
thousands  of  souls  from  perdition — is  he  to  be  deemed 
recreant  to  his  gentle  blood,  and  is  he  not  to  be 


64  FATHER  DAVION. 

esteemed  as  good  a  knight  as  his  great  ancestor  of  his 
torical  renown  ? 

Father  Davion  had  resided  for  some  time  with  the 
Tunicas,  where  he  had  made  himself  so  popular,  that, 
on  the  death  of  their  chief,  they  had  elected  him  to  fill 
his  place.  The  priest  humbly  declined  the  honor,  giv- 
ing for  his  reasons,  that  his  new  duties  as  their  chief 
would  be  incompatible  with  those  of  his  sacred  minis- 
try. Yet  the  Tunicas,  who  loved  and  venerated  him 
as  a  man,  were  loth  to  abandon  their  old  creed  to  adopt 
the  Christian  faith,  and  they  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  his 
admonitions.  One  day  the  missionary,  incensed  at 
their  obstinate  perseverance  in  idolatry,  and  wishing 
to  demonstrate  that  their  idols  were  too  powerless  to 
punish  any  offence  aimed  at  them,  burned  their  temple, 
and  broke  to  pieces  the  rudely  carved  figures  which 
were  the  objects  of  the  peculiar  adoration  of  that  tribe. 
The  Indians  were  so  much  attached  to  Father  Davion, 
that  they  contented  themselves  with  expelling  him,  and 
he  retired  on  the  territory  of  the  Yazoos,  who  proved 
themselves  readier  proselytes,  and  became  converts  in 
a  short  time.  This  means  that  they  adopted  some  of 
the  outward  signs  of  Christianity,  without  understand- 
ing or  appreciating  its  dogmas. 

Proud  of  his  achievements,  Father  Davion  had,  with 
such  aid  as  he  could  command,  constructed  and  hung 
up  a  pulpit  to  the  trunk  of  an  immense  oak,  in  the 
same  manner  that  it  is  stuck  to  a  pillar  in  the  Catholic 
churches.  Back  of  that  tree,  growing  on  the  slight  hill 
which  commanded  the  river,  he  had  raised  a  little 
Gothic  chapel,  the  front  part  of  which  was  divided  by 
the  robust  trunk  to  which  it  was  made  to  adhere,  with 
two  diminutive  doors  opening  into  the  edifice,  on 
either  side  of  that  vegetal  tower.  It  was  done  in  imi- 
tation of  those  stone  towel's,  which  stand  like  sentinels 


FATHER  DAVIOK  65 

wedged  to  the  frontispiece  of  the  temples  of  God,  on 
the  continent  of  Europe.  In  that  chapel,  Father  Da- 
vion  kept  all  the  sacred  vases,  the  holy  water,  and  the 
sacerdotal  habiliments.  There  he  used  to  retire  to 
spend  hours  in  meditation  and  in  prayer.  In  that  tab- 
ernacle was  a  small  portable  altar,  which,  whenever  he 
said  mass  for  the  natives,  was  transported  outside,  un- 
der the  oak,  where  they  often  met  to  the  number  of 
three  to  four  hundred.  What  a  beautiful  subject  for 
painting  !  The  majesty  of  the  river — the  glowing  rich- 
ness of  the  land  in  its  virgin  loveliness — the  Gothic 
chapel — the  pulpit  which  looked  as  if  it  had  grown  out 
of  the  holy  oak — the  hoary-headed  priest,  speaking  with 
a  sincerity  of  conviction,  an  impressiveness  of  manner 
and  a  radiancy  of  countenance  worthy  of  an  apostle — 
the  motley  crowd  of  the  Indians,  listening  attentively, 
some  with  awe,  others  with  meek  submission,  a  few 
with  a  sneering  incredulity,  which,  as  the  evangelical 
man  went  on,  seemed  gradually  to  vanish  from  their 
strongly  marked  features — in  the  background,  a  group 
of  their  juggling  prophets,  or  conjurers,  scowling  with 
fierceness  at  the  minister  of  truth,  who  was  destroying 
their  power ; — would  not  all  these  elements,  where  the 
grandeur  of  the  scenery  would  be  combined  with  the 
acting  of  man  and  the  development  of  his  feelings,  on 
an  occasion  of  the  most  solemn  nature,  produce  in  the 
hands  of  a  Salvator  Rosa,  or  of  a  Poussin,  the  most 
striking  effects  ? 

Father  Davion  had  acquired  a  perfect  knowledge  of 
the  dialect  of  his  neophytes,  and  spoke  it  with  as  much 
fluency  as  his  own  maternal  tongue.  He  had  both  the 
physical  and  mental  qualifications  of  an  orator :  he  was 
tall  and  commanding  in  stature ;  his  high  receding  fore- 
head was  well  set  off  by  his  long,  flowing,  gray  hairs, 
curling  down  to  his  shoulders ;  his  face  was  "  sicklied 


66  FATHER  D  AVION. 

over  witli  the  pale  cast  of  thought ;"  vigils  and  fasting 
had  so  emaciated  his  form  that  he  seemed  almost  to  be 
dissolved  into  spirituality.  There  was  in  his  eyes  a  soft, 
blue,  limpid  transparency  of  look,  which  seemed  to  be 
a  reflection  from  the  celestial  vault ;  yet  that  eye,  so 
calm,  so  benignant,  could  be  lighted  up  Avith  all  the 
coruscations  of  pious  wrath  and  indignation,  when,  in 
the  pulpit,  he  vituperated  his  congregation  for  some  act 
of  cruelty  or  deceit,  and  threatened  them  with  eternal 
punishment.  First,  he  would  remind  them,  with  apos- 
tolic unction,  with  a  voice  as  bland  as  the  evening 
breeze,  of  the  many  benefits  which  the  Great  Spirit  had 
showered  upon  them,  and  of  the  many  more  which  he 
had  in  store  for  the  red  men,  if  they  adhered  strictly  to 
his  law.  When  he  thus  spoke,  the  sunshine  of  his 
serene,  intellectual  countenance  would  steal  over  his 
hearers,  and  their  faces  would  express  the  wild  delight 
which  they  felt.  But,  anon,  when  the  holy  father  recol- 
lected the  many  and  daily  transgressions  of  his  unruly 
children,  a  dark  hue  would,  by  degrees,  creep  over  the 
radiancy  of  his  face,  as  if  a  storm  was  gathering,  and 
clouds  after  clouds  were  chasing  each  other  over  the 
mirror  of  his  soul.  Out  of  the  inmost  recesses  of  his 
heart,  there  arose  a  whirlwind  which  shook  the  holy 
man,  in  its  struggle  to  rush  out :  then  would  flash  the 
lightning  of  the  eye  ;  then  the  voice,  so  soft,  so  insinu- 
ating, and  even  so  caressing,  would  assume  tones  that 
sounded  like  repeated  peals  of  thunder ;  and  a  perfect 
tempest  of  eloquence  would  he  pour  forth  upon  his  dis- 
mayed auditory,  who  crossed  themselves,  crouched  to 
the  earth  and  howled  piteously,  demanding  pardon  for 
their  sins.  Then,  the  ghostly  orator,  relenting  at  the 
sight  of  so  much  contrition,  would  descend  like  Moses 
from  his  Mount  Sinai,  laying  aside  the  angry  elements 
in  which  he  had  robed  himself,  as  if  he  had  come  to 


FATHER  DAVIOK  67 

preside  over  the  last  judgment ;  and  with  the  gentle- 
ness of  a  lainb,  he  would  walk  among  his  prostrate 
auditors,  raising  them  from  the  ground,  pressing  them 
to  his  bosom,  and  comforting  them  with  such  sweet 
accents  as  a  mother  uses  to  lull  her  first-born  to  sleep. 
It  was  a  spectacle  touching  in  the  extreme,  and  angeli- 
cally pure ! 

Father  Davion  lived  to  a  very  old  age,  still  com- 
manding the  awe  and  affection  of  his  flock,  by  whom 
he  was  looked  upon  as  a  supernatural  being.  Had  they 
not,  they  said,  frequently  seen  him  at  night,  with  his 
dark,  solemn  gown,  not  walking,  but  gliding  through 
the  woods,  like  something  spiritual  ?  How  could  one, 
so  weak  in  frame,  and  using  so  little  food,  stand  so 
many  fatigues  ?  How  was  it,  that  whenever  one  of 
them  fell  sick,  however  distant  it  might  be,  Father 
Davion  knew  it  instantly,  and  was  sure  to  be  there,  be- 
fore sought  for  ?  Who  had  given  him  the  information  ? 
Who  told  him  whenever  they  committed  any  secret 
sin  ?  None ;  and  yet,  he  knew  it.  Did  any  of  his 
prophecies  ever  prove  false  ?  By  what  means  did  he 
arrive  at  so  much  knowledge  about  every  thing  ?  Did 
they  not,  one  day,  when  he  kneeled,  as  usual,  in  solitary 
prayer,  under  the  holy  oak,  see  from  the  respectful  dis- 
tance at  which  they  stood,  a  ray  of  the  sun  piercing  the 
thick  foliage  of  the  tree,  cast  its  lambent  flame  around 
his  temples,  and  wreath  itself  into  a  crown  of  glory, 
encircling  his  snow-white  hair  ?  What  was  it  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  muttering  so  long,  when  counting  the 
beads  of  that  mysterious  chain  that  hung  round  his 
neck  ?  Was  he  not  then  telling  the  Great  Spirit  every 
wrong  they  had  done  ?  So,  they  both  loved  and  feared 
Father  Davion.  One  day,  they  found  him  dead  at  the 
foot  of  the  altar :  he  was  leaning  against  it,  with  his 
head  cast  back,  with  his  hands  clasped,  and  still  retain- 


68  IBERVILLE'S  RETURN. 

ing  his  kneeling  position.  There  was  an  expression  of 
rapture  in  his  face,  as  if,  to  his  sight,  the  gates  of  para- 
dise had  suddenly  unfolded  themselves  to  give  him  ad- 
mittance :  it  was  evident  that  his  soul  had  exhaled  into 
a  prayer,  the  last  on  this  earth,  but  terminating,  no 
doubt,  in  a  hymn  of  rejoicing  above. 

Long  after  Davion's  death,  mothers  of  the  Yazoo 
tribe  used  to  carry  their  children  to  the  place  where  he 
loved  to  administer  the  sacrament  of  baptism.  There, 
these  simple  creatures,  with  many  ceremonies  of  a  wild 
nature,  partaking  of  their  new  Christian  faith  and  of 
their  old  lingering  Indian  superstitions,  invoked  and 
called  down  the  benedictions  of  Father  Davion  upon 
themselves  and  their  families.  For  many  years,  that 
spot  was  designated  under  the  name  of  Davion '*  Bluff. 
In  recent  times,  Fort  Adams  was  constructed  where 
Davion's  chapel  formerly  stood,  and  was  the  cause  of 
the  place  being  more  currently  known  under  a  different 
appellation. 

Such  were  the  two  visitors  who,  in  1699,  appeared 
before  Sau voile,  at  the  fort  of  Biloxi,  to  relieve  the 
monotony  of  his  cheerless  existence,  and  to  encourage 
him  in  his  colonizing  enterprise.  Their  visit,  however, 
was  not  of  long  duration,  and  they  soon  returned  to  dis- 
charge the  duties  of  their  sacred  mission. 

Iberville  had  been  gone  for  several  months,  and  the 
year  was  drawing  to  a  close  without  any  tidings  of  him 
A  deeper  gloom  had  settled  over  the  little  colony  at 
Biloxi,  when,  on  the  7th  of  December,  some  signal  guns 
were  heard  at  sea,  and  the  grateful  sound  came  boom- 
ing over  the  waters,  spreading  joy  in  every  breast. 
There  was  not  one  who  was  not  almost  oppressed  with 
the  intensity  of  his  feelings.  At  last,  friends  were 
coming,  bringing  relief  to  the  body  and  to  the  soul ! 
Every  colonist  hastily  abandoned  his  occupation  of  the 


TONTL 


69 


moment,  and  ran  to  the  shore.  The  soldier  himself,  in 
the  eagerness  of  expectation,  left  his  post  of  duty,  and 
rushed  to  the  parapet  which  overlooked  the  bay.  Pres- 
ently, several  vessels  hove  in  sight,  bearing  the  white 
flag  of  France,  and,  approaching  as  near  as  the  shallow- 
ness  of  the  beach  permitted,  folded  their  pinions,  like 
water-fowls  seeking  repose  on  the  crest  of  the  billows. 

It  was  Iberville,  returning  with  the  news  that,  on  his 
representations,  Sauvolle  had  been  appointed  by  the 
king,  Governor  of  Louisiana ;  Bienville  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  and  Boisbriant  commander  of  the  fort  at 
Biloxi,  with  the  grade  of  Major.  Iberville,  having  been 
informed  by  Bienville  of  the  attempt  of  the  English  to 
make  a  settlement  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
of  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  foiled,  resolved  to 
take  precautionary  measures  against  the  repetition  of 
any  similar  attempt.  Without  loss  of  time,  he  depart- 
ed with  Bienville,  on  the  17th  of  January,  1700,  and 
running  up  the  river,  he  constructed  a  small  fort,  on  the 
first  solid  ground  which  he  met,  and  which  is  said  to 
have  been  at  a  distance  of  fifty-four  miles  from  its 
mouth.  _/  ; 

When  so  engaged,  the  two  brothers  one  day  saw  a 
canoe  rapidly  sweeping  down  the  river,  and  approach- 
ing the  spot  where  they  stood.  It  was  occupied  by 
eight  men,  six  of  whom  were  rowers,  the  seventh  was 
the  steersman,  and  the  eighth,  from  his  appearance,  was 
evidently  of  a  superior  order  to  that  of  his  companions, 
and  the  commander  of  the  party.  Well  may  it  be  im- 
agined what  greeting  the  stranger  received,  when,  leap- 
ing on  shore,  he  made  himself  known  as  the  Chevalier 
de  Tonti,  who  had  again  heard  of  the  establishment  of 
a  colony  in  Louisiana,  and  who,  for  the  second  time, 
had  come  to  see  if  there  was  any  truth  in  the  report. 
With  what  emotion  did  Iberville  and  Bienville  fold  in 


70  NATCHEZ. 

their  arms  the  faithful  companion  and  friend  of  La 
Salle,  of  whom  they  had  heard  so  many  wonderful 
tales  from  the  Indians,  to  whom  he  was  so  well  known 
under  the  name  of  "  Iron  Hand !"  With  what  admira- 
tion they  looked  at  his  person,  and  with  what  increas- 
ing interest  they  listened  to  his  long  recitals  of  what 
he  had  done  and  had  seen  on  that  broad  continent,  the 
threshold  of  which  they  had  hardly  passed ! 

After  having  rested  three  days  at  the  fort,  the  inde- 
fatigable Tonti  reascended  the  Mississippi,  with  Iber- 
ville  and  Bienville,  and  finally  parted  with  them  at 
Natchez.  Iberville  was  so  much  pleased  with  that 
part  of  the  bank  of  the  river,  where  now  exists  the  city 
of  Natchez,  that  he  marked  it  down  as  a  most  eligible 
spot  for  a  town,  of  which  he  drew  the  plan,  and  which 
he  called  Rosalie,  after  the  maiden  name  of  the  Count- 
ess Pontchartrain,  the  wife  of  the  Chancellor.  He  then 
returned  to  the  new  fort  he  was  erecting  on  the  Mis- 
sissippi, and  Bienville  went  to  explore  the  country  of 
the  Yatasses,  of  the  Natchitoches,  and  of  the  Ouachitas. 
What  romance  can  be  more  agreeable  to  the  imagina- 
tion than  to  accompany  Iberville  and  Bienville  in  their 
wild  explorations,  and  to  compare  the  state  of  the  coun- 
try in  their  time  with  what  it  is  in  our  days  ? 

When  the  French  were  at  Natchez,  they  were  struck 
with  horror  at  an  occurrence,  too  clearly  demonstrating 
the  fierceness  of  disposition  of  that  tribe,  which  was 
destined,  in  after  years,  to  become  so  celebrated  in  the 
history  of  Louisiana.  One  of  their  temples  having  been 
set  on  fire  by  lightning,  a  hideous  spectacle  presented 
itself  to  the  Europeans.  The  tumultuous  rush  of  the 
Indians — the  infernal  howlings  and  lamentations  of  the 
men,  women,  and  children — the  unearthly  vociferations 
of  the  priests,  their  fantastic  dances  and  ceremonies 
around  the  burning  edifice — the  demoniac  fury  with 


NATCHEZ.  Tl 

which  mothers  rushed  to  the  fatal  spot,  and,  with  the 
piercing  cries  and  gesticulations  of  maniacs,  flung  their 
new-born  babes  into  the  flames  to  pacify  their  irritated 
deity — the  increasing  anger  of  the  heavens  blackening 
with  the  impending  storm,  the  lurid  flashes  of  the  light- 
nings, darting  as  it  were  in  mutual  enmity  from  the 
clashing  clouds — the  low,  distant  growling  of  the  com- 
ing tempest — the  long  column  of  smoke  and  fire  shoot- 
ing upward  from  the  funeral  pyre,  and  looking  like  one 
of  the  gigantic  torches  of  Pandemonium — the  war  of 
the  elements  combined  with  the  worst  effects  of  the  fren- 
zied superstition  of  man — the  suddenness  and  strange- 
ness of  the  awful  scene — all  these  circumstances  pro- 
duced such  an  impression  upon  the  French,  as  to  de- 
prive them,  for  the  moment,  of  the  powers  of  volition 
and  action.  Rooted  to  the  ground,  they  stood  aghast 
with  astonishment  and  indignation  at  the  appalling 
scene.  Was  it  a  dream  ? — a  wild  delirium  of  the  mind  ? 
But  no — the  monstrous  reality  of  the  vision  was  but  too 
apparent ;  and  they  threw  themselves  among  the  Indi- 
ans, supplicating  them  to  cease  their  horrible  sacrifice 
to  their  gods,  and  joining  threats  to  their  supplications. 
Owing  to  this  intervention,  and  perhaps  because  a  suf- 
ficient number  of  victims  had  been  offered,  the  priests 
gave  the  signal  of  retreat,  and  the  Indians  slowly  with- 
drew from  the  accursed  spot.  Such  was  the  aspect 
under  which  the  Natchez  showed  themselves,  for  the 
first  time,  to  their  visitors :  it  was  an  ominous  presage 
for  the  future. 

After  these  explorations,  Iberville  departed  again  for 
France,  to  solicit  additional  assistance  from  the  govern- 
ment, and  left  Bieuville  in  command  of  the  new  fort  on 
the  Mississippi.  It  was  very  hard  for  the  two  brothers> 
Sauvolle  and.Bienville,  to  be  thus  separated,  when  they 
stood  so  much  in  need  of  each  other's  countenance,  to 


72  DISTRESS  OF  THE  COLONISTS. 

breast  the  difficulties  that  sprung  up  around  them  with 
a  luxuriance  which  they  seemed  to  borrow  from  the 
vegetation  of  the  country.  The  distance  between  the 
Mississippi  and  Biloxi  was  not  so  easily  overcome  in 
those  days  as  in  ours,  and  the  means  which  the  two 
brothers  had  of  communing  together  were  very  scanty 
and  uncertain.  Sauvolle  and  his  companions  had  suf- 
fered much  from  the  severity  of  the  winter,  which  had 
been  so  great  that  in  one  of  his  dispatches  he  informed 
his  government  that  "  water,  when  poured  into  tumblers 
to  rinse  them,  froze  instantaneously,  and  before  it  could 
be  used? 

At  last,  the  spring  made  its  appearance,  or  rather 
the  season  which  bears  that  denomination,  but  which 
did  not  introduce  itself  with  the  genial  and  mild  atmos- 
phere that  is  its  characteristic  in  other  climes.  The 
month  of  April  was  so  hot  that  the  colonists  could  work 
only  two  hours  in  the  morning  and  two  in  the  evening. 
"When  there  was  no  breeze,  the  reflection  of  the  sun 
from  the  sea  and  from  the  sandy  beach  was  intolerable ; 
and  if  they  sought  relief  under  the  pine  trees  of  the 
forest,  instead  of  meeting  cool  shades,  it  seemed  to  them 
that  there  came  from  the  very  lungs  of  the  trees  a  hot 
breath,  which  sent  them  back  hastily  to  the  burning 
shore,  in  quest  of  air.  Many  of  the  colonists,  accus- 
tomed to  the  climate  of  Canada  and  France,  languished, 
pined,  fell  sick,  and  died.  Some,  as  they  lay  panting 
under  the  few  oaks  that  grew  near  the  fort,  dreamed 
of  the  verdant  valleys,  the  refreshing  streams,  the  pic- 
turesque hills,  and  the  snow-capped  mountains  of  their 
native  land.  The  fond  scenes  upon  which  their  imagi- 
nation dwelt  with  rapture,  would  occasionally  assume, 
to  their  enfeebled  vision,  the  distinctness  of  real  exist- 
ence, and  feverish  recollection  would  produce  on  the 
horizon  of  the  mind,  such  an  apparition  as  tantalizes 


SAUVOLLE,  FIRST  GOVERNOR  73 

the  dying  traveler  in  the  parched  deserts  of  Arabia. 
When  despair  had  paved  the  way,  it  was  easy  for  dis- 
ease to  follow,  and  to  crush  those  that  were  already 
prostrate  in  mind  and  in  body.  To  increase  the  misery 
of  these  poor  wretches,  famine  herself  raised  her  spec- 
tral form  among  them,  and  grasped  pestilence  by  the 
hand  to  assist  her  in  the  work  of  desolation.  Thus, 
that  fiendish  sisterhood  reigned  supreme,  where,  in  our 
days,  health,  abundance,  and  wealth,  secured  by  the 
improvements  of  civilization,  bless  the  land  with  per- 
petual smiles. 

Sauvolle,  from  the  feebleness  of  his  constitution,  was 
more  exposed  than  any  of  his  companions  to  be  affected 
by  the  perils  of  the  situation ;  and  yet  it  was  he  upon 
whom  devolved  the  duty  of  watching  over  the  safety 
of  others.  But  he  was  sadly  incapacitated  for  the 
discharge  of  that  duty  by  physical  and  moral  causes. 
When  an  infant,  he  had  inherited  a  large  fortune  from 
an  aunt,  whose  godson  he  was.  With  such  means  at 
his  future  command,  the  boy,  who  gave  early  evidence 
of  a  superior  intellect,  became  the  darling  hope  of  his 
family,  and  was  sent  to  France  to  be  qualified  for  the 
splendid  career  which  parental  fondness  anticipated  for 
him.  The  seeds  of  education  were  not,  in  that  instance, 
thrown  on  a  rebellious  soil ;  and  when  Sauvolle  left  the 
seat  of  learning  where  he  had  been  trained,  he  carried 
away  with  him  the  admiration  of  his  professors  and  of 
his  schoolmates.  In  the  high  circles  of  society  where 
his  birth  and  fortune  entitled  him  to  appear,  he  pro- 
duced no  less  sensation ;  and  well  he  might,  for  he  ap- 
peared, to  an  eminent  degree,  capable  of  adorning  any 
station  which  he  might  wish  to  occupy.  Nature  had 
been  pleased  to  produce  another  Crichton,  and  Sauvolle 
soon  became  known  as  the  American  prodigy.  Racine 
called  him  a  poet;  Bossuet  had  declared  that  there 


74  SAUVOLLE'S  BRILLIANT  PROSPECTS 

were  in  him  all  the  materials  of  a  great  orator ;  and 
the  haughty  Villars,  after  a  conversation  of  several 
hours  with  him,  was  heard  to  say,  "  Here  is  a  Marshal 
of  France  in  embryo." 

The  frivolous  admired  his  wonderful  expertness  in 
fencing,  in  horsemanship,  and  his  other  acquirements 
of  a  similar  nature ;  artists  might  have  been  proud  of 
his  talent  for  painting  and  for  music ;  and  those  friends 
that  were  admitted  into  his  intimacy  were  struck  with 
his  modesty  and  with  the  high-toned  morality  which 
pervaded  the  life  of  one  so  young.  The  softer  sex, 
yielding  to  the  fascination  of  his  manly  graces,  was 
held  captive  by  them,  and  hailed  his  first  steps  on  the 
world's  stage  with  all  the  passionate  enthusiasm  of  the 
female  heart.  But  he  loved  and  was  loved  by  the  fair- 
est daughter  of  one  of  the  noblest  houses  of  France, 
and  his  nuptials  were  soon  to  be  celebrated  with  fitting 
pomp.  Was  not  this  the  acme  of  human  felicity  ?  If 
so,  whence  that  paleness  which  sat  on  his  brow,  and 
spoke  of  inward  pain,  moral  or  physical?  Whence 
those  sudden  starts  ?  Why  was  he  observed  occasion- 
ally to  grasp  his  heart  with  a  convulsive  hand  ?  What 
appalling  disclosure  could  make  him  desert  her  to  whom 
his  faith  was  plighted,  and  could  so  abruptly  hurry  him 
away  from  France  and  from  that  seat  where  so  much 
happiness  was  treasured  up  for  him  ?  That  it  was  no 
voluntary  act  on  his  part,  and  that  he  was  merely  com- 
plying with  the  stern  decree  of  fate,  could  be  plainly 
inferred  from  that  look  of  despair  which,  from  the  ship 
that  bore  him  away,  he  cast  at  the  shores  of  France 
when  receding  from  his  sight.  So  must  Adam  have 
looked,  when  he  saw  the  flaming  sword  of  the  angel  of 
punishment  interposed  between  him  and  Paradise. 

Sauvolle  arrived  in  Canada  at  the  very  moment 
when  Iberville  and  Bienville  were  preparing  their  ex- 


SAUVOLLE'S  MISFORTUNES.  75 

pedition  to  Louisiana ;  and  lie  eagerly  begged  to  join 
them,  saying  that  he  knew  his  days  were  numbered, 
that  he  had  come  back  to  die  in  America,  and  that  since 
his  higher  aspirations  were  all  blasted,  he  could  yet  find 
some  sort  of  melancholy  pleasure  in  closing  his  career 
in  that  new  colony,  of  which  his  brothers  were  to  be 
the  founders,  and  to  which  they  were  to  attach  their 
names  forever. 

Poor  Sauvolle !  the  star  of  his  destiny  which  rose  up 
at  the  court  of  Louis  the  XlVth  with  such  gorgeousness, 
was  now  setting  in  gloom  and  desolation  on  the  bleak 
shore  of  Biloxi.  How  acute  must  his  mental  agony 
have  been,  when,  by  day  and  by  night,,  the  comparison 
of  what  he  might  have  been  with  what  he  was  must 
have  incessantly  forced  itself  upon  his  mind:  Why 
had  Nature  qualified  him  to  be  the  best  of  husbands 
and  fathers,  when  forbidding  him,  at  the  same  time,  to 
assume  the  sacred  character  which  he  coveted,  and  to 
form  those  ties,  without  which,  existence  could  only  be 
a  curse  to  one  so  exquisitely  framed  to  nourish  the 
choicest  affections  of  our  race  ?  Why  give  him  all  the 
elements  of  greatness,  and  preclude  their  development  ? 
Why  inspire  him  with  the  consciousness  of  worth,  and 
deny  him  time  and  life  for  its  manifestation?  Why 
had  such  a  mind  and  such  a  soul  been  lodged  in  a  de- 
fective body,  soon  to  be  dissolved  ?  Why  a  blade  of 
such  workmanship  in  such  an  unworthy  scabbard? 
Why  create  a  being  with  feelings  as  intense  as  ever  ani- 
mated one  of  his  species,  merely  to  bruise  them  in  the 
bud  ?  Why  shower  upon  him  gifts  of  such  value, 
when  they  were  to  be  instantly  resumed  ?  Why  light 
up  the  luminary  which  was  to  be  extinguished  before 
its  rays  could  be  diffused  ?  Was  it  not  a  solemn  mock- 
ery ?  What  object  could  it  answer,  except  to  inflict 
extreme  misery?  Surely,  it  could  only  be  a  concep- 


76  SATJVOLLE'S  DEATH. 

tion  or  device  of  the  arch-enemy  of  mankind !  Bat 
how  could  he  be  allowed  thus  to  trifle  with  God's  crea- 
tures ?  Were  they  his  puppets  and  playthings  ?  or,  was 
it  one  of  God's  inscrutable  designs  ?  Was  it  an  enigma 
only  to  be  solved  hereafter? — These  reflections  may 
be  supposed  to  have  passed  through  Sauvolle's  mind, 
as  he,  with  folded  arms,  one  day,  stood  on  the  para- 
pet of  the  fort  at  Biloxi,  looking  sorrowfully  at  the 
scene  of  desolation  around  him,  at  his  diseased  and 
famished  companions.  Overwhelmed  with  grief,  he 
withdrew  his  gaze  from  the  harrowing  sight,  heaved  a 
deep  sigh  and  uplifted  his  eyes  toward  heaven,  with  a 
look  which  plainly  asked,  if  his  placid  resignation  and 
acquiescent  fortitude  had  not  entitled  him  at  last  to  re- 
pose. That  look  of  anguish  was  answered :  a  slight  con- 
vulsion flitted  over  his  face,  his  hand  grasped  the  left 
side  of  his  breast,  his  body  tottered,  and  Sau voile  was 
dead  before  he  reached  the  ground. 

Such  was  the  fate  of  the  first  governor  of  Louisiana. 
A  hard  fate  indeed  is  that  of  defective  organization ! 
An  anticipated  damnation  it  is,  for  the  unbeliever,  when 
spiritual  perfection  is  palsied  and  rendered  inert  by 
being  clogged  with  physical  imperfection,  or  wedded  to 
diseased  matter !  When  genius  was  flashing  in  the 
head,  when  the  spirit  of  God  lived  in  the  soul,  why  did 
creation  defeat  its  own  apparent  purposes,  in  this  case, 
by  planting  in  the  heart  the  seeds  of  aneurism  ?  It  is 
a  question  which  staggers  philosophy,  confounds  human 
reason,  and  is  solved  only  by  the  revelations  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

What  a  pity  that  Sauvolle  had  not  the  faith  of  a 
Davion,  or  of  a  St.  Louis,  whose  deaths  I  have  re- 
corded in  the  preceding  pages !  He  would  have  known 
that  the  heavier  the  cross  we  bear  with  Christian  resig- 
nation in  this  world,  the  greater  the  reward  is  in  the 


REFLECTIONS.  T7 

better  one  which  awaits  us  :  and  that  our  trials  in  this, 
our  initiatory  state  of  terrestrial  existence,  are  merely 
intended  by  the  infinite  goodness  of  the  Creator,  as 
golden  opportunities  for  us  to  show  our  fidelity,  and  to 
deserve  a  higher  or  lesser  degree  of  happiness,  when  we 
shall  enter  into  the  celestial  kingdom  of  spiritual  and 
eternal  life,  secured  to  us  at  the  price  of  sufferings 
alone :  and  what  sufferings !  Those  of  the  Godhead 
himself !  He  would  not  then  have  repined  at  pursuing 
the  thorny  path,  trod  before,  for  his  sake,  by  the  divine 
Victim,  and  with  Job  he  would  have  said :  "  Who  is 
he  that  hideth  counsel  without  knowledge  ?  Therefore 
have  I  uttered  that  I  understood  not ;  things  too  won- 
derful for  me,  which  I  knew  not.  The  Lord  gave,  and 
the  Lord  hath  taken  away ;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the 
Lord !" 

I  lately  stood  where  the  first  establishment  of  the 
French  was  made,  and  I  saw  no  vestiges  of  their  pas- 
sage, save  in  the  middle  of  the  space  formerly  occupied 
by  the  fort,  where  I  discovered  a  laying  of  bricks  on  a 
level  with  the  ground,  and  covering  the  common  area 
of  a  tomb.  Is  it  the  repository  of  Sauvolle's  remains  ? 
I  had  with  me  no  pickaxe  to  solve  the  question,  and  in- 
deed it  was  more  agreeable  to  the  mood  in  which  I 
was  then,  to  indulge  in  speculations,  than  to  ascertain 
the  truth.  Since  the  fort  had  been  abandoned,  it  was 
evident  that  there  never  had  been  any  attempt  to  turn 
the  ground  to  some  useful  purpose,  although,  being 
cleared  of  trees,  it  must  have  been  more  eligible  for  a 
settlement  than  the  adjoining  ground  which  remained 
covered  with  wood.  Yet,  on  the  right  and  left,  beyond 
the  two  ravines  already  mentioned,  habitations  are  to 
be  seen ;  but  a  sort  of  traditionary  awe  seems  to  have 
repelled  intrusion  from  the  spot  marked  by  such  mel- 
ancholy recollections.  On  the  right,  as  you  approach 


78  REFLECTIONS. 

the  place,  a  beautiful  villa,  occupied  by  an  Anglo- 
American  family,  is  replete  with  all  the  comforts  and 
resources  of  modern  civilization  ;  while  on  the  left,  there 
may  be  seen  a  rude  hut,  where  still  reside  descendants 
from  the  first  settlers,  living  in  primitive  ignorance  and 
irreclaimable  poverty,  which  lose,  however,  their  offen- 
sive features,  by  being  mixed  up  with  so  much  of  patri- 
archal virtues,  of  pristine  innocence,  and  of  arcadian 
felicity.  These  two  families,  separated  only  by  the  site 
of  the  old  fort,  but  between  whose  social  position,  there 
existed  such  an  immense  distance,  struck  me  as  being 
fit  representatives  of  the  past  and  of  the  present.  One 
was  the  type  of  the  French  colony,  and  the  other,  the 
emblem  of  its  modern  transformation. 

I  gazed  with  indescribable  feelings  on  the  spot  where 
Sauvolle  and  his  companions  had  suffered  so  much. 
Humble  and  abandoned  as  it  is,  it  was  clothed  in  my 
eye  with  a  sacred  character,  when  I  remembered  that 
it  was  the  cradle  of  so  many  sovereign  states,  which  are 
but  disjecta  membra  of  the  old  colony  of  Louisiana. 
What  a  contrast  between  the  French  colony  of  1700, 
and  its  imperial  substitute  of  1848 !  Is  there  in  the 
mythological  records  of  antiquity,  or  in  the  fairy  tales 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  any  thing  that  will  not  sink  into 
insignificance,  when  compared  with  the  romance  of  such 
a  history  ? 


THIRD  LECTURE, 

SITUATION  OF  THE  COLONY  FROM  1701  TO  1712 — THE  PETTICOAT  INSURRECTION — 
HISTORY  AND  DEATH  OF  IBERVILLE  —  BIENVILLE,  THE  SECOND  GOVERNOR  OF 
LOUISIANA — HISTORY  OF  ANTHONY  CROZAT,  THE  GREAT  MERCHANT — CONCESSION  OF 
LOUISIANA  TO  HIM. 

SAUVOLLE  had  died  on  the  22d  of  July,  1701,  and 
Louisiana  had  remained  under  the  sole  charge  of  Bien- 
ville,  who,  though  very  young,  was  fully  equal  to  meet 
that  emergency,  by  the  maturity  of  his  mind  and  by  his 
other  qualifications.  He  had  hardly  consigned  his 
brother  to  the  tomb,  when  Iberville  returned  with  two 
ships  of  the  line  and  a  brig  laden  with  troops  and  pro- 
visions. The  first  object  that  greeted  his  sight,  on  his 
landing,  was  Bienville,  whose  person  was  in  deep 
mourning,  and  whose  face  wore  such  an  expression  as 
plainly  told  that  a  blow,  fatal  to  both,  had  been  struck 
in  the  absence  of  the  head  of  the  family.  In  their  mute 
embraces,  the  two  brothers  felt  that  they  understood 
each  other  better  than  if  their  grief  had  vented  itself  in 
words,  and  Iberville's  first  impulse  was  to  seek  Sau- 
volle's  tomb.  There  he  knelt  for  hours,  bathed  in 
tears,  and  absorbed  in  fervent  prayer  for  him  whom  he 
was  to  see  no  more  in  the  garb  of  mortality.  This  re- 
cent blow  reminded  him  of  a  father's  death,  whom  he 
had  seen  carried  off,  bleeding,  from  the  battle-field; 
and  then  his  four  brothers,  who  had  met  the  same  stern 
and  honorable  fate,  rose  to  his  sight  with  their  ghastly 
wounds;  and  he  bethought  himself  of  the  sweet  and 
melancholy  face  of  his  mother,  who  had  sunk  gradually 


80  IBERVILLE'S  GRIEF. 

into  the  grave,  drooping  like  a  gentle  flower  under  the 
rough  visitations  of  the  wind  of  adversity.  On  these 
heavy  recollections  of  the  past,  his  heart  swelled  with 
tears,  and  he  implored  heaven  to  spare  his  devoted 
family,  or,  if  any  one  of  its  members  was  again  destined 
to  an  early  death,  to  take  him,  Iberville,  as  a  free  offer- 
ing, in  preference  to  the  objects  of  his  love.  But  there 
are  men,  upon  whom  grief  operates  as  fire  upon  steel : 
it  purifies  the  metal,  and  gives  more  elasticity  to  its 
spring ;  it  works  upon  the  soul  with  that  same  mysteri- 
ous process  by  which  nature  transforms  the  dark  car- 
buncle into  the  shining  diamond.  These  men  know 
how  to  turn  from  the  desolation  of  their  heart,  and  sur- 
vey the  world  with  a  clearer,  serener  eye,  to  choose  the 
sphere  where  they  can  best  accomplish  their  mission 
on  this  earth — that  mission — the  fulfilment  of  duties 
whence  good  is  to  result  to  mankind,  or  to  their  coun- 
try. One  of  these  highly  gifted  beings  Iberville  was, 
and  he  soon  withdrew  his  attention  from  the  grave,  to 
give  it  entirely  to  the  consolidation  of  the  great  national 
enterprise  he  had  undertaken — the  establishment  of  a 
colony  in  Louisiana. 

According  to  Iberville's  orders,  and  in  conformity 
with  the  king's  instructions,  Bienville  left  Boisbriant, 
his  cousin,  with  twenty  men,  at  the  old  fort  of  Biloxi, 
and  transported  the  principal  seat  of  the  colony  to  the 
western  side  of  the  river  Mobile,  not  far  from  the  spot 
where  now  stands  the  city  of  Mobile.  Near  the  mouth 
of  that  river,  there  is  an  island,  which  the  French  had 
called  Massacre  Island,  from  the  great  quantity  of  hu- 
man bones  which~4hey  found  bleaching  on  its  shores. 
It  was  evident  that  there  some  awful  tragedy  had  been 
acted ;  but  tradition,  when  interrogated,  laid  her  choppy 
finger  upon  her  skinny  lips,  and  answered  not.  This 
uncertainty,  giving  a  free  scope  to  the  imagination, 


DAUPHINE  ISLAND.  81 

shrouded  the  place  with  a  higher  degree  of  horror,  and 
with  a  deeper  hue  of  fantastical  gloom.  It  looked  like 
the  favorite  ball-room  of  the  witches  of  hell.  The  wind 
sighed  so  mournfully  through  the  shriveled  up  pines, 
whose  vampire  heads  seemed  incessantly  to  bow  to 
some  invisible  and  grisly  visitors :  the  footsteps  of  the 
stranger  emitted  such  an  awful  and  supernatural  sound, 
when  trampling  on  the  skulls  which  strewed  his  path, 
that  it  was  impossible  for  the  coldest  imagination  not 
to  labor  under  some  crude  and  ill-defined  apprehen- 
sions. Verily,  the  weird  sisters  could  not  have  chosen 
a  fitter  abode.  Nevertheless,  the  French,  supported  by 
their  mercurial  temperament,  were  not  deterred  from 
forming  an  establishment  on  that  sepulchral  island, 
which,  they  thought,  afforded  some  facilities  for  their 
transatlantic  communications.  They  changed  its  name, 
however,  and  called  it  Dauphine  Island.  As,  to  many, 
this  name  may  be  without  signification,  it  may  not  be 
improper  to  state,  that  the  wife  of  the  eldest  born  of 
the  King  of  France,  and  consequently,  of  the  presump- 
tive heir  to  the  crown,  was,  at  that  time,  called  the 
Dauphine,  and  her  husband  the  Dauphin.  This  was 
in  compliment  to  the  province  of  Dauphine,  which  was 
annexed  to  the  kingdom  of  France,  on  the  abdication 
of  a  Count  of  Dauphine,  who  ceded  that  principality 
to  the  French  monarch  in  1349.  Hence  the  origin  of 
the  appellation  given  to  the  island.  It  was  a  higb- 
sounding  and  courtly  name  for  such  a  bleak  repository 
of  the  dead ! 

Iberville  did  not  tarry  long  in  Louisiana.  His  home 
was  the  broad  ocean,  where  he  had  been  nursed,  as  it 
were ;  and  he  might  have  exclaimed  with  truth,  in  the 
words  of  Byron : — 

—  "I  have  loved  thee,  Ocean !  and  my  joy 

Of  youthful  sports  was  on  thy  breaat  to  be 

F 


82  IBERVILLE  LEAVES  THE  COLONY. 

Borne,  like  bubbles,  onward  :  from  a  boy 
I  wantoned  with  thy  breakers — they  to  me 
Were  a  delight ;  and  if  the  freshening  sea 
Hade  them  a  terror — 'twas  a  pleasing  fear, 
For  I  was  as  it  were  a  child  of  thee, 
And  trusted  to  thy  billows  far  and  near, 
And  laid  my  hand  upon  thy  mane." 

But,  before  his  departure,  he  gave  some  wholesome  ad- 
vice to  his  government : — "  It  is  necessary,"  said  he,  in 
one  of  his  dispatches,  "to  send  here  honest  tillers  of 
the  earth,  and  not  rogues  and  paupers,  who  come  to 
Louisiana  solely  with  the  intention  of  making  a  fortune, 
by  all  sorts  of  means,  in  order  to  speed  back  to  Europe. 
Such  men  can  not  be  elements  of  prosperity  to  a  col- 
ony." He  left  those,  of  whom  he  was  the  chief  pro- 
tector, abundantly  supplied  with  every  thing,  and  see- 
ing that  their  affectionate  hearts  were  troubled  with 
manifold  misgivings  as  to  their  fate,  which  appeared  to 
them  to  be  closely  linked  with  his  own,  he  promised 
soon  to  return,  and  to  bring  additional  strength  to 
what  he  justly  looked  upon  as  his  creation.  But  it  had 
been  decreed  otherwise. 

In  1703,  war  had  broken  out  between  Great  Britain, 
France  and  Spain ;  and  Iberville,  a  distinguished  officer 
of  the  French  navy,  was  engaged  in  expeditions  that 
kept  him  away  from  the  colony.  It  did  not  cease,  how- 
ever, to  occupy  his  thoughts,  and  had  become  clothed, 
in  his  eye,  with  a  sort  of  family  interest.  Louisiana 
was  thus  left,  for  some  time,  to  her  scanty  resources ; 
but,  weak  as  she  was,  she  gave  early  proofs  of  that  gen- 
erous spirit  which  has  ever  since  animated  her;  and, 
on  the  towns  of  Pensacola  and  San  Augustine,  then  in 
possession  of  the  Spaniards,  being  threatened  with  an 
invasion  by  the  English  of  South  Carolina,  she  sent  to 
her  neighbors  what  help  she  could,  in  men,  ammunition, 


THE  COLONY  RELIEVED  BY  PENSACOLA.  83 

and  supplies  of  all  sorts.  It  was  the  more  meritorious, 
as  it  was  the  obolus  of  the  poor ! 

The  year  1703  slowly  rolled  by,  and  gave -way  to 
1*704.  Still,  nothing  was  heard  from  the  parent  coun- 
try. There  seemed  to  be  an  impassable  barrier  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new  continent.  The  milk  which 
flowed  from  the  motherly  breast  of  France  could  no 
longer  reach  the  parched  lips  of  her  new-born  infant ; 
and  famine  began  to  pinch  the  colonists,  who  scattered 
themselves  all  along  the  coast,  to  live  by  fishing.  They 
were  reduced  to  the  veriest  extremity  of  misery,  and 
despair  had  settled  in  every  bosom,  in  spite  of  the  en- 
couragements of  Bienville,  who  displayed  the  most 
manly  fortitude  amid  all  the  trials  to  which  he  was 
subjected,  when  suddenly  a  vessel  made  its  appearance. 
The  colonists  rushed  to  the  shore  with  wild  anxiety, 
but  their  exultation  was  greatly  diminished  when,  on 
the  nearer  approach  of  the  moving  speck,  they  recog- 
nized the  Spanish,  instead  of  the  French  flag.  It  was 
relief,  however,  coming  to  them,  and  proffered  by  a 
friendly  hand.  It  was  a  return  made  by  the  governor 
of  Pensacola,  for  the  kindness  he  had  experienced  the 
year  previous.  Thus,  the  debt  of  gratitude  was  paid : 
it  was  a  practical  lesson.  Where  the  seeds  of  charity 
are  cast,  there  springs  the  harvest  in  time  of  need. 

Good  things,  like  evils,  do  not  come  single,  and  this 
succor  was  but  the  herald  of  another  one,  still  more 
effectual,  in  the  shape  of  a  ship  from  France.  Iberville 
had  not  been  able  to  redeem  his  pledge  to  the  poor 
colonists,  but  he  had  sent  his  brother  Chateaugue  in  his 
place,  at  the  imminent  risk  of  being  captured  by  the 
English,  who  occupied,  at  that  time,  most  of  the  ave- 
nues of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  He  was  not  the  man  to 
spare  either  himself,  or  his  family,  in  cases  of  emergency, 
and  his  heroic  soul  was  inured  to  such  sacrifices.  Grate- 


84:  ARRIVAL  OF  CIIATEAUGUE. 

ful  the  colonists  were  for  this  act  of  devotedness,  and 
they  resumed  the  occupation  of  those  tenements  which 
they  had  abandoned  in  search  of  food.  The  aspect  of 
things  was  suddenly  changed  ;  abundance  and  hope  re- 
appeared in  the  land,  whose  population  was  increased 
by  the  arrival  of  seventeen  persons,  who  came,  under 
the  guidance  of  Chateaugud,  with  the  intention  of 
making  a  permanent  settlement,  and  who,  in  evidence 
of  their  determination,  had  provided  themselves  with 
all  the  implements  of  husbandry.  We,  who  daily  see 
hundreds  flocking  to  our  shores,  and  who  look  at  the 
occurrence  with  as  much  unconcern  as  at  the  passing 
cloud,  can  hardly  conceive  the  excitement  produced  by 
the  arrival  of  these  seventeen  emigrants  among  men 
who,  for  nearly  two  years,  had  been  cut  off  from  com- 
munication with  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world.  A 
denizen  of  the  moon,  dropping  on  this  planet,  would  not 
be  stared  at  and  interrogated  with  more  eager  curi- 
osity. 

This  excitement  had  hardly  subsided,  when  it  was 
revived  by  the  appearance  of  another  ship,  and  it  be- 
came intense,  when  the  inhabitants  saw  a  procession  of 
twenty  females,  with  veiled  faces,  proceeding  arm  in 
arm,  and  two  by'  two,  to  the  house  of  the  governor, 
who  received  them  in  state,  and  provided  them  with 
suitable  lodgings.  What  did  it  mean  ?  Innumerable 
were  the  gossipings  of  the  day,  and  part  of  the  coming 
night  itself  was  spent  in  endless  commentaries  and  con- 
jectures. But  the  next  morning,  which  was  Sunday, 
the  mystery  was  cleared  by  the  officiating  priest  read- 
ing from  the  pulpit,  after  mass,  and  for  the  general  in- 
formation, the  following  communication  from  the  minis- 
ter to  Bienville :  "  His  majesty  sends  twenty  girls  to  be 
married  to  the  Canadians  and  to  the  other  inhabitants 
of  Mobile,  in  order  to  consolidate  the  colony.  All  these 


ARRIVAL  OF  WIVES  FOR  THE  COLONISTS.  85 

girls  are  industrious,  and  have  received  a  pious  and  vir- 
tuous education.  Beneficial  results  to  the  colony  are 
expected  from  their  teaching  their  useful  attainments 
to  the  Indian  females.  In  order  that  none  should  be 
sent  except  those  of  known  virtue  and  of  unspotted 
reputation,  his  majesty  did  intrust  the  "bishop  of  Que- 
bec with  the  mission  of  taking  these  girls  from  such  es- 
tablishments, as,  from  their  very  nature  and  character, 
would  put  them  at  once  above  all  suspicions  of  cor- 
ruption. You  will  take  care  to  settle  them  in  life  as 
well  as  may  be  in  your  power,  and  to  marry  them  to 
such  men  as  are  capable  of  providing  them  with  a  com- 
modious home." 

This  was  a  very  considerate  recommendation,  and 
very  kind  it  was,  indeed,  from  the  great  Louis  the 
XlVth,  one  of  the  proudest  monarchs  that  ever  lived, 
to  descend  from  his  Olympian  seat  of  majesty,  to  the 
level  of  such  details,  and  to  such  minute  instructions 
for  ministering  to  the  personal  comforts  of  his  remote 
Louisianian  subjects.  Many  were  the  gibes  and  high 
was  the  glee  on  that  occasion ;  pointed  were  the  jokes 
aimed  at  young  Bienville,  on  his  being  thus  transformed 
into  a  matrimonial  agent  and  pater  familiae.  The  in- 
tentions of  the  king,  however,  were  faithfully  executed, 
and  more  than  one  rough  but  honest  Canadian  boat- 
man of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  of  the  Mississippi,  closed 
his  adventurous  and  erratic  career,  and  became  a  do- 
mestic and  useful  member  of  that  little  commonwealth, 
under  the  watchful  influence  of  the  dark-eyed  maid  of 
the  Loire  or  of  the  Seine.  Infinite  are  the  chords  of 
the  lyre  which  delights  the  romantic  muse  ;  and  these 
incidents,  small  and  humble  as  they  are,  appear  to  me 
to  be  imbued  with  an  indescribable  charm,  which  ap- 
peals to  her  imagination. 

Iberville  had  gone  back  to  France  since  1701,  and 


86  ARRIVAL  OF  DUCOUDRAY  WITH  SUPPLIES. 

the  year  1705  had  now  begun  its  onward  course,  with- 
out his  having  returned  to  the  colony,  according  to  his 
promise,  so  that  the  inhabitants  had  become  impatient 
of  further  delay.  They  were  in  that  state  of  suspense, 
when  a  ship  of  the  line,  commanded  by  Ducoudray,  ar- 
rived soon  after  the  opening  of  the  year,  but  still  to 
disappoint  the  anxious  expectations  of  the  colonists. 
No  Iberville  had  come :  yet  there  was  some  consolation 
in  the  relief  which  was  sent — goods,  provisions,  ammu- 
nition ;  flesh-pots  of  France,  rivaling,  to  a  certainty, 
those  of  Egypt ;  sparkling  wines  to  cheer  the  cup ; 
twenty-three  girls  to  gladden  the  heart ;  five  priests  to 
minister  to  the  wants  of  the  soul  and  to  bless  holy  al- 
liances ;  two  sisters  of  charity  to  attend  on  the  sick  and 
preside  over  the  hospital  of  the  colony,  and  seventy-five 
soldiers  for  protection  against  the  inroads  of  the  In- 
dians. This  was  something  to  be  thankful  for,  and  to 
occupy  the  minds  of  the  colonists  for  a  length  of  time. 
But  life  is  chequered  with  many  a  hue,  and  the  antag- 
onistical  agents  of  good  and  evil  closely  tread,  in  alter- 
nate succession,  on  the  heels  of  each  other.  Thus,  the 
short-lived  rejoicings  of  the  colonists  soon  gave  way  to 
grief  and  lamentations.  A  hungry  epidemic  did  not 
disdain  to  prey  upon  the  population,  small  as  it  was, 
and  thirty-five  persons  became  its  victims.  Thirty- 
five  !  This  number  was  enormous  in  those  days,  and 
the  epidemic  of  IT 05  became  as  celebrated  in  the  med- 
ical annals  of  the  country,  as  will  be  the  late  one  of 
1847. 

The  history  of  Louisiana,  in  her  early  days,  presents 
a  Shaksperian  mixture  of  the  terrible  and  of  the  ludi- 
crous. What  can  be  more  harrowing  than  the  mas- 
sacre of  the  French  settlement  on  the  Wabash  in  1705 ; 
and  in  1706,  what  more  comical  than  the  threatened 
insurrection  of  the  French  girls,  who  had  come  to  set- 


THE  PETTICOAT  INSURRECTION.  87 

tie  in  the  country,  under  allurements  which  proved  de- 
ceptive, and  who  were  particularly  indignant  at  being 
fed  on  corn  ?  This  fact  is  mentioned  in  these  terms  in 
one  of  Bienville's  dispatches :  "  The  males  in  the  colony 
begin,  through  habit,  to  be  reconciled  to  corn,  as  an 
article  of  nourishment ;  but  the  females,  who  are  most- 
ly Parisians,  have  for  this  kind  of  food  a  dogged  aver- 
sion, which  has  not  yet  been  subdued.  Hence,  they 
inveigh  bitterly  against  his  grace,  the  Bishop  of  Que- 
bec, who,  they  say,  has  enticed  them  away  from  home, 
under  the  pretext  of  sending  them  to  enjoy  the  milk 
and  honey  of  the  land  of  promise."  Enraged  at  having 
thus  been  deceived,  they  swore  that  they  would  force 
their  way  out  of  the  colony,  on  the  first  opportunity. 
This  was  called  the  petticoat  insurrection. 

There  were,  at  that  particular  time,  three  important 
personages,  who  were  the  hinges  upon  which  every 
thing  turned  in  the  commonwealth  of  Louisiana.  These 
magnates  were,  Bienville,  the  governor,  who  wielded 
the  sword,  and  who  was  the  great  executive  mover  of 
all ;  La  Salle,  the  intendant  commissary  of  the  crown, 
who  had  the  command  of  the  purse,  and  who  therefore 
might  be  called  the  controlling  power ;  and  the  Curate 
de  la  Vente,  who  was  not  satisfied  with  mere  spiritual 
influence.  Unfortunately,  in  this  Liliputian  adminis- 
tration, the  powers  of  the  state  and  church  were  sadly 
at  variance,  in  imitation  of  their  betters  in  larger  com- 
munities. The  commissary,  La  Salle,  in  a  letter  of  the 
fan  of  December,  1706,  accused  Iberville,  Bienville,  and 
Chateaugue,  the  three  brothers,  of  being  guilty  of  every 
sort  of  malfeasances  and  dilapidations?  "  They  are 
rogues,"  said  he,  "  who  pilfer  away  his  Majesty's  goods 
and  effects."  The  Curate  de  la  Vente,  whose  pre- 
tensions to  temporal  power  Bienville  had  checked, 
backed  La  Salle,  and  undertook  to  discredit  the  gov- 


88  DISSENSIONS  IN  THE  COLONY. 

ernor's  authority  with  the  colonists,  by  boasting  of  his 
having  sufficient  influence  at  court  to  cause  him  to  be 
soon  dismissed  from  office. 

On  Bienville's  side  stood,  of  course,  Chateaugue,  his 
brother,  and  Major  Boisbriant,  his  cousin.  But  Cha- 
teaugue was  a  new  man  (novus  homo)  in  the  colony, 
and  consequently  had,  as  yet,  acquired  very  little 
weight.  Boisbriant,  although  a  zealous  friend,  had 
found  means  to  increase  the  governor's  vexations,  by 
falling  deeply  in  love.  He  had  been  smitten,  perhaps, 
for  the  want  of  something  better,  with  the  charms  of  a 
lady,  to  whose  charge  had  been  committed  the  twenty 
girls  selected  by  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  and  who  had 
been  appointed,  as  a  sort  of  lay  abbess,  to  superintend 
their  conduct  on  the  way  and  in  Louisiana,  until  they 
got  provided  with  those  suitable  monitors  who  are 
called  husbands.  That  lady  had  reciprocated  the  affec- 
tions of  Boisbriant,  and  so  far,  the  course  of  love  ran 
smooth.  But,  as  usual,  it  was  doomed  to  meet  with 
one  of  those  obstacles  which  have  given  rise  to  so  many 
beautiful  literary  compositions.  Bienville  stoutly  ob- 
jected to  the  match,  as  being  an  unfit  one  for  his  rela- 
tion and  subordinate,  and  peremptorily  refused  his  ap- 
probation. Well  may  the  indignation  of  the  lady  be 
conceived!  Boisbriant  seems  to  have  meekly  sub- 
mitted to  the  superior  wisdom  of  his  chief,  but  she, 
scorning  such  forbearance,  addressed  herself  to  the 
minister,  and  complained,  in  no  measured  terms,  of 
what  she  called  an  act  of  oppression.  After  having 
painted  her  case  with  as  strong  colors  as  she  could,  she 
very  naturally  concluded  her  observations  with  this 
sweeping  declaration  concerning  Bienville :  "  It  is  there- 
fore evident  that  he  has  not  the  necessary  qualifications 
to  be  governor  of  this  colony."  Such  is  the  logic  of 


DISSENSIONS  IN  THE  COLONY.  89 

Love,  and  although  it  may  provoke  a  smile,  thereby 
hangs  a  tale  not  destitute  of  romance. 

These  intestine  dissensions  were  not  the  only  difficul- 
ties that  Bienville  had  to  cope  with.  The  very  exist- 
ence of  the  colony  was  daily  threatened  by  the  Indians ; 
a  furious  war,  in  which  the  French  were  frequently  im- 
plicated, raged  between  the  Chickasaws  and  the  Choc- 
taws  ;  and  the  smaller  nations,  principally  the  Aliba- 
mons,  that  prowled  about  the  settlements  of  the  colo- 
nists, committed  numerous  thefts  and  murders.  It 
seemed  that  all  the  elements  of  disorder  were  at  work 
to  destroy  the  social  organization  which  civilization 
had  begun,  and  that  the  wild  chaos  of  barbarian  sway 
claimed  his  own  again.  Uneasy  lay  the  head  of  Bien- 
ville in  his  midnight  sleep,  for  fearfully  alive  was  he  to 
the  responsibility  which  rested  on  his  shoulders.  In 
that  disturbed  state  of  his  mind,  with  what  anxiety  did 
he  not  interrogate  the  horizon,  and  strain  to  peep  into 
the  vacancy  of  space,  in  the  fond  hope  that  some  signs 
of  his  brother's  return  would  greet  his  eyes !  But,  alas ! 
the  year  lYOT  had  run  one  half  of  its  career,  and  yet 
Iberville  came  not.  To  what  remote  parts  of  heaven 
had  the  eagle  flown,  not  to  hear  and  not  to  mind  the 
shrieks  of  the  inmates  of  his  royal  nest  ?  Not  oblivious 
the  eagle  had  been,  but  engaged  in  carrying  Jove's 
thunderbolts,  he  had  steadily  pursued  the  accomplish- 
ment of  his  task. 

Dropping  the  metaphorical  style,  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  state,  that  during  the  five  years  he  had  been  absent 
from  Louisiana,  Iberville  had  been,  with  his  usual  suc- 
cess, nobly  occupied  in  supporting  the  honor  of  his 
country's  flag,  and  in  increasing  the  reputation  which 
he  had  already  gained,  as  one  of  the  brightest  gems  of 
the  French  navy.  If  the  duration  of  a  man's  existence 
is  to  be  measured  by  the  merit  of  his  deeds,  then  Iber- 


90  EARLY  LIFE  OF  IBERVILLE. 

ville  had  lived  long,  before  reaching  the  meridian  of 
life,  and  he  was  old  in  fame,  if  not  in  years,  when  he 
undertook  to  establish  a  colony  in  Louisiana.  From 
his  early  youth,  all  his  days  had  been  well  spent,  be- 
cause dedicated  to  some  useful  or  generous  purpose. 
The  soft  down  of  adolescence  had  hardly  shaded  his 
face,  when  he  had  become  the  idol  of  his  countrymen. 
The  foaming  brine  of  the  ocean,  the  dashing  waters  of 
the  rivers,  the  hills  and  valleys  of  his  native  country 
and  of  the  neighboring  British  possessions,  had  wit- 
nessed his  numerous  exploits.  Such  were  the  confi- 
dence and  love  with  which  he  had  inspired  the  Cana- 
dians and  Acadians  for  his  person,  by  the  irresistible 
seduction  of  his  manners,  by  the  nobleness  of  his  de- 
portment, by  the  dauntless  energy  of  his  soul,  and  by 
the  many  qualifications  of  his  head  and  heart,  that  they 
would,  said  Father  Charlevoix,  have  followed  him  to 
the  confines  of  the  universe.  It  would  be  too  long  to 
recite  his  wonderful  achievements,  and  the  injuries 
which  he  inflicted  upon  the  fleets  of  England,  particu- 
larly in  the  Bay  of  Hudson,  either  by  open  force,  or 
by  stealth  and  surprise.  When  vessels  were  icebound, 
they  were  more  than  once  stormed  by  Iberville  and 
his  intrepid  associates.  Two  of  his  brothers,  Ste.  He- 
lene  and  Mericourt,  both  destined  to  an  early  death, 
used  to  be  his  willing  companions  in  these  adventurous 
expeditions.  At  other  times,  when  the  war  of  the  ele- 
ments seemed  to  preclude  any  other  contest,  Iberville, 
in  a  light  buoyant  craft,  which  sported  merrily  on  the 
angry  waves,  would  scour  far  and  wide  the  Bay  of 
Hudson,  and  the  adjacent  sea,  to  prey  upon  the  com- 
merce of  the  great  rival  of  France,  and  many  were  the 
prizes  which  he  brought  into  port.  These  were  the 
sports  of  his  youth. 

The  exploits  of  Iberville  on  land  and  at  sea  acquired 


EXPLOITS  OF  IBERVILLE.  91 

for  him  a  sort  of  amphibious  celebrity.  Among  other 
doings  of  great  daring,  may  be  mentioned  the  taking 
of  Corlar,  near  Orange,  in  the  province  of  New  York. 
In  November,  1694,  he  also  took,  in  the  Bay  of  Hud- 
son, the  fort  of  Port  Nelson,  defended  by  forty-two 
pieces  of  artillery,  and  he  gave  it  the  name  of  Fort 
Bourbon.  In  1696  he  added  to  his  other  conquests, 
the  Fort  of  Pemkuit  in  Acadia.  When  Chubb,  the 
English  commander,  was  summoned  to  surrender,  he 
returned  this  proud  answer:  "If  the  sea  were  white 
with  French  sails,  and  the  land  dark  with  Indians,  I 
would  not  give  up  the  fort,  unless  when  reduced  to  the 
very  last  extremities."  In  spite  of  this  vaunt,  he  was 
soon  obliged  to  capitulate.  The  same  year,  Iberville 
possessed  himself  of  the  Fort  of  St.  John,  in  Newfound- 
land, and  in  a  short  time  forced  the  rest  of  that  prov- 
ince to  yield  to  his  arms.  The  French,  however,  did 
not  retain  it  long.  But  his  having  revived  La  Salle's 
project  of  establishing  a  colony  in  Louisiana,  constitutes, 
on  account  of  the  magnitude  of  its  results,  his  best  claim 
to  the  notice  of  posterity.  We  have  seen  how  he  exe- 
cuted that  important  undertaking. 

After  a  long  absence  from  that  province,  the  colo- 
nization of  which  was  his  favorite  achievement,  he  was 
now  preparing  to  return  to  its  shores,  and  arrived  at 
San  Domingo,  having  under  his  command  a  consider- 
able fleet,  with  which  he  meditated  to  attack  Charles- 
ton in  South  Carolina ;  from  whence  he  cherished  the 
hope  of  sailing  for  Louisiana,  with  all  the  pomp,  pride, 
and  circumstance  of  glorious  victory.  He  had  stopped 
at  San  Domingo,  because  he  had  been  authorized  to 
reinforce  himself  with  a  thousand  men,  whom  he  was 
to  take  out  of  the  garrison  of  that  island.  The  ships 
had  been  revictualed,  the  troops  were  embarked,  and 
Iberville  was  ready  to  put  to  sea,  when  a  great  feast 


92  IBERVILLE  IN  SAN  DOMINGO. 

was  tendered  to  him  and  to  his  officers,  by  the  frienda 
from  whom  he  was  soon  to  part.  Loud  the  sound  of 
revelry  was  still  heard  in  hall  and  bower,  when  Iber- 
ville,  whose  thoughts  dwelt  on  the  responsibilities  of 
the  expedition  which  had  been  intrusted  to  his  care, 
withdrew  from  the  assembly,  where  he  had  been  the 
observed  of  all,  leaving  and  even  encouraging  his  sub- 
ordinates to  enjoy  the  rest  of  that  fairy  night,  which  he 
knew  was  soon  to  be  succeeded  for  them  by  the  perils 
and  hardships  of  war.  He  was  approaching  that  part 
of  the  shore  where  his  boat  lay,  waiting  to  carry  him  to 
his  ship,  when,  as  he  trod  along,  in  musing  loneliness, 
his  attention  was  attracted  by  the  beauties  of  the  trop- 
ical sky,  which  gleamed  over  his  head.  From  that 
spangled  canopy,  so  lovely  that  it  seemed  worthy  of 
Eden,  there  appeared  to  descend  an  ambrosial  atmos- 
phere, which  glided  through  the  inmost  recesses  of  the 
body,  gladdening  the  whole  frame  with  voluptuous 
sensations.  Iberville's  pace  slackened  as  he  admired, 
and  at  last  he  stopped,  rooted  to  the  ground,  as  it  were 
by  a  sort  of  magnetic  influence,  exercised  upon  him  by 
the  fascinations  of  the  scene.  Folding  his  arms,  and 
wrapt  up  in  ecstasy,  he  gazed  long  and  steadily  at  the 
stars  which  studded  the  celestial  vault. 

O  stars !  who  has  not  experienced  your  mystical  and 
mysterious  power !  Who  has  ever  gazed  at  you,  without 
feeling  undefinable  sensations,  something  of  awe,  and  a 
vague  consciousness  that  ye  are  connected  with  the  fate 
of  mortals !  Ye  silent  orbs,  that  move  with  noiseless 
splendor  through  the  infiniteness  of  space,  how  is  it  that 
your  voice  is  so  distinctly  heard  in  the  soul  of  man,  if 
his  essence  and  yours  were  not  bound  together  by  some 
electric  link,  as  are  all  things,  no  doubt,  in  the  universe  ? 
How  the  eyes  grow  dim  with  rapturous  tears,  and  the 
head  dizzy  with  wild  fancies,  when  holding  communion 


IBERVILLE  IX  SAN  DOMINGO.  93 

with  you,  on  the  midnight  watch !  Ye  stars,  that,  scat- 
tered over  the  broad  expanse  of  heaven,  look  to  me  as 
if  ye  were  grains  of  golden  dust,  which  God  shook  off 
his  feet,  as  he  walked  in  his  might,  on  the  days  of  crea- 
tion, I  love  and  worship  you  !  When  there  were  none 
in  the  world  to  sympathize  with  an  aching  heart,  with 
a  heart  that  would  have  disdained,  in  its  lonely  pride, 
to  show  its  pangs  to  mortal  eyes,  how  often  have  I  felt 
relief  in  your  presence  from  the  bitter  recollection  of 
past  woes,  and  consolation  under  the  infliction  of  pres- 
ent sufferings !  How  often  have  I  drawn  from  you  such 
inspirations  as  prepared  me  to  meet,  with  fitting  forti- 
tude, harsher  trials  still  to  come !  How  often  have  I 
gazed  upon  you,  until,  flying  upon  the  wings  of  imagi- 
nation, I  soared  among  your  bright  host,  and  spiritual- 
ized myself  away,  far  away,  from  the  miseries  of  my 
contemptible  existence !  Howsoever  that  ephemeral 
worm,  cynical  man,  may  sneer,  he  is  no  idle  dreamer, 
the  lover  of  you,  the  star-gazer.  The  broad  sheet  of 
heaven  to  which  ye  are  affixed,  like  letters  of  fire,  is  a 
book  prepared  by  God  for  the  learned  and  the  igno- 
rant, where  man  can  read  lessons  to  guide  him  through 
the  active  duties  and  the  struggles  of  this  life,  and  to 
conduct  him  safely  to  the  portals  of  the  eternal  one 
which  awaits  mortality ! 

Thus,  perhaps,  Iberville  felt,  as  he  was  spying  the 
face  of  heaven.  But  death  was  around  him — it  was  in 
the  very  air  which  he  breathed.  The  soft  balmy  breeze 
in  which  he  luxuriated,  was  impregnated  with  an  in- 
sidious poison,  fatal  to  those  not  born  in  tropical  cli- 
mates. The  pestilence  so  well  known  under  the  name 
of  yellow  fever  was  sweeping  over  the  land.  Giving 
no  warning  of  its  presence,  it  was  among  yonder  revel- 
lers whom  Iberville  had  just  left,  and  whose  music  and 
mundane  mirth  still  reached  his  ears.  Morning  came, 


94:       BIENVILLE'S  INTERVIEW  WITH  INDIAN  CHIEFS. 

and  Iberville  fell  ill,  and  on  the  third  day  was  gather- 
ed to  his  forefathers'  bosom.  Thus  died  this  truly 
great  and  good  man,  in  compliment  to  whose  memory 
the  name  of  Iberville  was  given  to  one  of  our  most  im- 
portant parishes. 

Ill  was  the  wind  that  carried  to  Louisiana  the  mel- 
ancholy information  of  Iberville's  death.  It  blasted  the 
hearts  of  the  poor  colonists,  and  destroyed  the  hope 
they  had  of  being  speedily  relieved.  Their  situation 
had  become  truly  deplorable :  their  numbers  were  rap- 
idly diminishing:  and  the  Indians  were  daily  becoming 
more  hostile,  and  more  bold  in  their  demands  for  goods 
and  merchandise,  as  a  tribute  which  they  exacted  for 
not  breaking  out  into  actual  warfare.  Bienville  con- 
vened the  chiefs  of  the  Chickasaws  and  of  the  Choc- 
taws,  in  order  to  conciliate  them  by  some  trifling  pres- 
ents of  which  he  could  yet  dispose,  and  to  gain  time  by 
some  fair  promises  as  to  what  he  would  do  for  them 
under  more  favorable  circumstances.  With  a  view  of 
making  an  imposing  show,  Bienville  collected  all  the 
colonists  that  were  within  reach :  but  notwithstanding 
that  display,  a  question,  propounded  by  one  of  the  In- 
dian chiefs,  gave  him  a  humiliating  proof  of  the  slight 
estimation  in  which  the  savages  held  the  French  nation. 
Much  to  his  annoyance,  he  was  asked  if  that  part  of  his 
people  which  remained  at  home  was  as  numerous  as 
that  which  had  come  to  settle  in  Louisiana.  Bienville, 
who  spoke  their  language  perfectly  well,  attempted,  by 
words  and  comparisons  suited  to  their  understanding, 
to  impart  to  them  a  correct  notion  of  the  extent  of  the 
population  of  France.  But  the  Indians  looked  incredu- 
lous, and  one  of  them  even  said  to  Bienville,  "  If  your 
countrymen  are,  as  you  affirm,  as  thick  on  their  native 
soil  as  the  leaves  of  our  forests,  how  is  it  that  they  do  not 
send  more  of  their  warriors  here,  to  avenge  the  death  of 


HIS  CRITICAL  POSITION— INTRIGUES  OF  LA  SALLE.        95 

such  of  them  as  have  fallen  by  our  hands  ?  Not  to  do  so, 
when  having  the  power,  would  argue  them  to  be  of  a 
very  base  spirit.  And  how  is  it  .that  most  of  the  tall 
and  powerful  men  that  came  with  you,  being  dead,  are 
replaced  only  by  boys,  or  cripples,  or  women,  that  do 
you  no  credit  ?  Surely  the  French  would  not  so  be- 
have, if  they  could  do  otherwise,  and  my  white  brother 
tells  a  story  that  disparages  his  own  tribe." 

Thus  Bienville  found  himself  in  a  very  critical  situa- 
tion. He  was  conscious  that  his  power  was  despised  by 
the  Indians,  who  knew  that  he  had  only  forty-five 
soldiers  at  his  disposal,  and  he  felt  that  the  red  men 
could  easily  rise  upon  him  and  crush  the  colony  at  one 
blow.  He  was  aware  that  they  were  restrained  from 
doing  the  deed  by  their  cupidity  only,  bridled  as  they 
were  by  their  expectation  of  the  arrival  of  some  ship 
with  merchandise,  which,  they  knew  from  experience, 
would  soon  have  to  come  to  their  huts  to  purchase  peace, 
and  in  exchange  for  furs.  Bienville  felt  so  weak,  so 
much  at  the  mercy  of  the  surrounding  nations,  and  en- 
tertained such  an  apprehension  of  some  treacherous  and 
sudden  attack  on  their  part,  that  he  thought  it  pru- 
dent to  concentrate  his  forces,  and  to  abandon  the  fort 
where  he  kept  a  small  garrison  on  the  Mississippi. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  death  of  Iberville  had  en- 
couraged the  hostility  of  Bienville's  enemies.  They 
knew  that  he  was  no  longer  supported  by  the  powerful 
influence  of  his  brother  at  court,  and  they  renewed  their 
attacks  with  a  better  hope  of  success.  The  commissary 
La  Salle  pushed  on  his  intrigues  with  more  activity, 
and  reduced  them  to  a  sort  of  systematic  warfare.  He 
divided  the  colony  into  those  that  were  against  and 
those  that  were  for  Bienville.  All  such  persons  as  sup- 
ported the  governor's  administration  were  branded  as 
felons:  and  those  that  pursued  another  course,  who- 


96  CHARACTER  OF  LA  SALLE. 

ever  they  might  be,  were  angels  of  purity.  At  that 
time,  there  was  in  the  colony  a  physician,  sent  thither 
and  salaried  by  the  government,  who  was  called  the 
king's  physician.  His  name  was  Barrot :  from  the  cir- 
cumstance of  his  being  the  only  member  of  his  profes- 
sion in  the  country,  and  from  the  nature  of  his  duties, 
he  was  in  a  position  to  exercise  a  good  deal  of  influence. 
La  Salle  attempted  to  win  him  over  to  his  sidet  and 
having  failed  in  his  efforts,  he  immediately  wrote  to  the 
minister,  "  that  Barrot,  although  he  had  the  honor  of 
being  the  king's  physician  in  the  colony,  was  no  bet- 
ter than  a  fool,  a  drunkard  and  a  rogue,  who  sold  the 
king's  drugs  and  appropriated  the  money  to  his  own 
purposes." 

Authors,  who  have  written  on  the  structure  of  man, 
have  said  that  if  his  features  were  closely  examined, 
there  would  be  found  in  them  a  strange  resemblance 
with  some  of  the  animals,  of  the  birds,  or  of  the  reptiles 
that  people  this  globe.  I  remember  having  seen  curi- 
ous engravings  exemplifying  this  assertion  with  the 
most  wonderful  effect.  In  a  moral  sense,  the  resem- 
blance is  perhaps  greater,  and  the  whale,  the  lion,  the 
eagle,  the  wolf,  the  lamb,  and  other  varieties  of  the 
brutish  creation,  may,  without  much  examination,  be 
discovered  to  exist,  physically  and  spiritually,  in  the 
human  species.  Among  the  bipeds  that  are  reckoned 
to  belong  to  the  ranks  of  humanity,  none  was  better 
calculated  than  La  Salle  to  personate  the  toad.  His 
mission  was  to  secrete  venom,  as  the  rose  exhales  per- 
fumes. Nature  delights  in  contrarieties.  Fat,  short, 
and  sleek,  with  bloated  features  and  oily  skin,  he  was 
no  unfit  representative  of  that  reptile,  although  certainly 
io  him  the  traditionary  legend  of  a  jewel  in  the  head 
could  not  be  applied.  Puffed  up  in  self-conceit,  an  eter- 
nal smile  of  contentment  was  stereotyped  on  the  gross 


CHARACTER  OF  LA  SALLE.  97 

texture  of  his  lips,  where  it  was  mixed  with  an  expres- 
sion of  bestial  sensuality.  His  cold  grayish  eyes  had 
the  dull  squint  of  the  hog,  and  as  he  strutted  along,  one 
was  almost  amazed  not  to  hear  an  occasional  grunt. 
This  thing  of  the  neuter  gender,  which,  to  gift  with  the 
faculty  of  speech,  seemed  to  be  an  injustice  done  to  the 
superior  intellect  of  the  baboon,  did,  forsooth,  think  it- 
self an  orator.  Whenever  this  royal  commissary  had  a 
chance  of  catching  a  few  of  the  colonists  together,  for 
instance,  on  all  public  occasions,  he  would  gradually 
drop  the  tone  of  conversation,  and  sublimate  his  collo- 
quial address  into  a  final  harangue.  Thus,  the  valves 
of  his  brazen  throat  being  open,  out  ran  the  muddy 
water  of  his  brain,  bespattering  all  that  stood  within 
reach.  Pitched  on  a  high  and  monotonous  key,  his 
prosy  voice  carried  to  his  hearers,  for  hours,  the  same 
insane,  insipid  flow  of  bombastic  phrases,  falling  on  the 
ear  with  the  unvaried  and  ever- recurring  sound  of  a 
pack-horse  wheel  in  a  flour-mill.  A  coiner  of  words,  he 
could  have  filled  with  them  the  vaults  of  the  vastest 
mint;  but  if  analyzed  and  reduced  to  their  sterling 
value,  they  would  not  have  produced  a  grain  of  sense. 
This  man,  contemptible  as  he  was,  had  actually  become 
a  public  nuisance,  on  account  of  the  impediments  with 
which  he  embarrassed  the  administration  of  Louisiana. 
He  was  eternally  meddling  with  every  thing,  under  the 
pretext  of  correcting  abuses,  and  although  he  was  in- 
capable of  producing  any  thing  of  his  own  that  could 
stand  on  its  legs  for  a  minute,  he  was  incessantly  con- 
cocting some  plan,  as  ill-begotten  as  his  own  misshapen 
person.  He  was,  in  his  own  delirious  opinion,  as  com- 
plete a  financier,  as  skillful  a  statesman,  as  great  a  gen- 
eral, and,  above  all,  as  profound  a  legislator,  as  ever 
lived ;  so  that  this  legislative  Caliban  had  even  gone  so 
far  as  to  imagine  he  could  frame  a  code  of  laws  for  the 

G 


DISMISSAL  OF  BIENVILLE  FROM  OFFICE. 

colony ;  and,  because  all  his  preposterous  propositions 
were  resisted  by  Bienville,  he  had  conceived  for  him 
the  bitterest  hatred.  To  do  him  justice,  it  must  be  said 
that  he  was  in  earnest,  when  he  reproached  others  with 
malversation  and  every  sort  of  malfeasances.  There 
are  creatures  whose  accusations  it  would  be  wrong  to 
resent.  They  see  themselves  reflected  in  others,  and, 
like  yelping  curs,  pursue  with  their  barkings  the  sinful 
image :  it  would  be  as  idle  to  expect  them  to  under- 
stand the  workings  of  a  noble  heart  and  of  a  great 
mind,  as  it  would  be  to  imagine  that  a  worm  could 
raise  itself  to  the  conception  of  a  planet's  gravitations. 

So,  perhaps,  thought  Bienville,  and  he  passed  with  silent 
contempt  over  La  Salle's  maneuvers.  Was  he  not  right  ? 
He  who  thinks  himself  your  adversary,  but  who,  if  you 
were  to  turn  upon  him  with  the  flashes  of  honest  indig- 
nation, with  the  uplifted  spear  of  physical  and  mental 
power  united,  with  the  threatening  aspect  of  what  he 
does  not  possess  and  dreams  not  of,  a  soul,  convulsed 
into  a  storm,  would  shrink  into  an  atom  and  flatten 
himself  to  the  level  of  your  heels,  can  not  be  a  real  ad- 
versary :  his  enmity  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  vain  shadow, 
the  phantom  of  impotent  envy.  This  is  no  doubt  the 
most  dignified  course  to  be  pursued,  but  perhaps  not  the 
most  prudent ;  and  Bienville  soon  discovered  that,  how- 
ever it  may  be  in  theory,  there  is,  in  practice,  no  attack 
so  pitiful  as  not  to  require  some  sort  of  precautionary 
defense.  Thus  on  the  13th  of  July,  1707,  the  minister 
dismissed  Bienville  from  office,  appointed  De  Muys  in 
his  place,  and  instructed  this  new  governor  to  examine 
into  the  administration  of  his  predecessor,  and  into  the 
accusations  brought  against  him,  with  the  authorization 
of  sending  him  prisoner  to  France,  if  they  were  well 
founded.  A  poor  chance  it  was  for  Bienville,  to  be 
judged  by  the  man  that  pushed  him  from  his  stool,  and 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COLONY.  99 

whose  continuance  in  office  would  probably  depend 
upon  the  guilt  of  the  accused !  This  was  but  a  sorry 
return  for  the  services  of  Bienville  and  for  those  of  his 
distinguished  family.  But  thus  goes  the  world ! 

La  Salle  had  no  cause  to  triumph  over  the  downfall 
of  Bienville,  for  he  himself  was,  at  the  same  time,  dis- 
missed from  office,  and  was  succeeded  by  Diron  d'Ar- 
taguette.  Nay,  he  had  the  mortification  of  seeing  Bien- 
ville retain  his  power,  while  he  lost  his ;  because  De 
Muys  never  reached  Louisiana,  having  died  in  Havana, 
on  his  way  to  the  colony  of  which  he  had  been  ap- 
pointed governor.  To  increase  his  vexation,  he  saw 
that  most  of  the  colonists,  even  those  who  had  been 
momentarily  opposed  to  Bienville,  became  suddenly 
alive  to  his  merits,  when  they  were  on  the  eve  of  losing 
him,  and  with  spontaneous  unanimity  subscribed  a  pe- 
tition, by  which  they  expressed  their  satisfaction  with 
Bienville's  administration,  and  supplicated  the  minister 
not  to  deprive  them  of  such  a  wise  and  faithful  gov- 
ernor. This  was  sufficiently  distressing  for  La  Salle's 
envious  heart ;  but  his  spleen  was  worked  into  a  parox- 
ysm of  rage,  when  he  was  informed  that  his  successor, 
the  royal  commissary,  Diron  d'Artaguette,  had  made  a 
report  to  the  king,  in  which  he  declared,  that  all  the 
accusations  brought  against  Bienville,  were  mere  slan- 
derous inventions,  which  rested  on  no  other  foundation 
than  the  blackest  malice.  Writhing  like  a  snake  un- 
der the  unexpected  blow,  he  still  attempted  to  sting, 
and  he  wrote  to  France,  "  that  d'Artaguette  was .  not 
deserving  of  any  faith  or  credit ;  that  he  had  come  to 
an  understanding  with  Bienville,  and  that  they  were 
both  equally  bad  and  corrupt." 

It  was  by  such  misunderstandings  among  the  chiefs 
of  the  colony,  that  its  progress  was  checked  so  long. 
In  1*708,  its  population  did  not  exceed  279  persons. 


100  CONDITION  OF  THE  COLONY. 

To  this  number  must  be  added  sixty  Canadian  vaga- 
bonds, who  led  a  wandering  and  licentious  life  among 
the  Indians.  Its  principal  wealth  consisted  in  50  cows, 
40  calves,  4  bulls,  8  oxen,  1400  hogs,  and  2000  hens. 
This  statement  shows  the  feebleness  of  the  colony  after 
an  existence  of  nine  years.  But  the  golden  eggs  had 
been  laid  in  the  land,  and  although  kept  torpid  and 
unprofitable  for  more  than  a  century,  by  the  chilling 
contact  of  an  imbecile  despotism,  they,  in  the  progress 
of  time,  were  hatched  by  the  warm  incubation  of  lib- 
erty into  the  production  of  that  splendid  order  of 
things,  which  is  the  wonder  of  the  present  age. 

But,  at  that  time,  the  colony  seemed  to  be  gifted 
with  little  vitality,  and  the  nursling  of  Bienville  threat- 
ened to  expire  in  his  hands  at  every  moment.  The 
colonists  were  little  disposed  to  undertake  the  laborious 
task  of  securing  their  subsistence  by  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil,  and  they  expected  that  the  mother  country 
would  minister  to  all  their  wants.  Servile  hands  would 
have  been  necessary,  but  Indian  slavery  was  not  found 
to  be  profitable,  and  Bienville  wrote  to  his  government 
to  obtain  the  authorization  of  exchanging  Indians  for 
negroes  with  the  French  West  India  Islands.  "  We 
shall  give,"  said  he,  "three  Indians  for  two  negroes. 
The  Indians,  when  in  the  islands,  will  not  be  able  to 
run  away,  the  country  being  unknown  to  them,  and  the 
negroes  will  not  dare  to  become  fugitives  in  Louisiana, 
because  the  Indians  would  kill  them."  This  demand 
met  with  no  favorable  reception.  Bienville  was  so 
anxious  to  favor  the  development  of  the  colony,  that  he 
was  led  by  it  into  an  unjust  and  despotic  measure,  as  is 
proved  by  the  following  extract  from  one  of  his  dis- 
patches. "I  have  ordered  several  citizens  of  La 
Rochelle  to  be  closely  watched,  because  they  wish  to 
quit  the  country.  They  have  scraped  up  something  by 


CONDITION  OF  THE  COLONY.  101 

keeping  taverns.  Therefore  it  appears  to  me  to  be 
nothing  but  justice  to  force  them  to  remain  in  the 
country,  on  the  substance  of  which  they  have  fattened." 
This  sentiment,  howsoever  it  may  disagree  with  our 
modern  notions  of  right  and  wrong,  was  not  repugnant 
to  the  ethics  of  the  time. 

In  spite  of  the  spirited  exertions  of  Bienville,  famine 
reappeared  in  the  colony,  and  in  January,  1709,  the  in- 
habitants were  reduced  to  live  on  acorns.  As  usual 
under  such  circumstances,  the  intestine  dissensions  of 
which  such  a  melancholy  description  has  been  already 
given  became  more  acrid.  The  minds  of  men  are  not 
apt  to  grow  conciliating  under  the  double  infliction  of 
disappointment  and  famine,  and  the  attacks  upon  Bien- 
ville were  renewed  with  more  than  usual  fierceness.  La 
Salle,  although  now  stripped  of  the  trappings  of  office, 
still  remained  in  the  colony,  to  pursue  his  game,  and  to 
force  the  noble  lord  of  the  forest  to  stand  at  bay.  His 
associate  in  persecution,  the  Curate  de  la  Vente,  hallooed 
with  him  in  zealous  imitation,  and  it  is  much  to  be  re- 
gretted that  they  were  joined  in  the  chase  by  Marigny 
de  Mandeville,  a  brave  and  noble-minded  officer,  lately 
come  to  the  country,  who  informed  his  government 
"  that  the  colony  never  would  prosper  until  it  had  a 
governor  with  an  honest  heart  and  with  an  energetic 
mind ;''  which  meant  that  Bienville  was  deficient  in 
both.  It  was  an  error  committed  by  Marigny  de  Man- 
deville, and  into  which  he  was  no  doubt  led  by  the 
misrepresentations  of  La  Salle  and  of  the  Curate  de  la 
Vente. 

Bienville  had  so  far  remained  passive,  but  was  at  last 
stung  into  angry  recriminations,  which  he  retorted  on 
all  his  adversaries,  particularly  on  the  Curate  de  la 
Vente,  who,  said  he,  "  had  tried  to  stir  wp  every  body 
against  him  by  his  calumnies,  and  who,  in  the  mean 


102  ROYAL  CHARTER  Tt  ANTHONY  CROZAT. 

time,  did  not  Hush  to  Iceep  an  open  shop,  where  his  mode 
of  trafficking  showed  that  he  was  a  shi°ewd  compound 
of  the  Arab  and  of  the  Jew? 

The  scarcity  of  provisions  became  such  in  1710,  that 
Bienville  informed  his  government  that  he  had  scat- 
tered the  greatest  part  of  his  men  among  the  Indians, 
upon  whom  he  had  quartered  them  for  food.  This 
measure  had  been  more  than  once  adopted  before,  and 
demonstrates  that  the  Indians  could  hardly  have  been 
so  hostile  as  they  have  been  represented ;  otherwise, 
they  would  have  availed  themselves  of  such  opportuni- 
ties to  destroy  the  invaders  of  their  territory.  Be  it  as 
it  may,  the  colony  continued  in  its  lingering  condition, 
gasping  for  breath  in  its  cradle,  until  1*712,  when,  on 
the  14th  of  September,  the  King  of  France  granted  to 
Anthony  Crozat  the  exclusive  privilege,  for  fifteen  years, 
of  trading  in  all  that  immense  territory  which,  with  its 
undefined  limits,  France  claimed  as  her  own  under  the 
name  of  Louisiana.  Among  other  privileges,  were  those 
of  sending,  once  a  year,  a  ship  to  Africa  for  negroes  and 
of  possessing  and  working  all  the  mines  of  precious 
metals  to  be  discovered  in  Louisiana,  provided  that  one 
fourth  of  their  proceeds  should  be  reserved  for  the 
king.  He  also  had  the  privilege  of  owning  forever  all 
the  lands  that  he  would  improve  by  cultivation,  all  the 
buildings  he  would  erect,  and  all  the  manufactures  that 
he  might  establish.  His  principal  obligation,  in  ex- 
change for  such  advantages,  was  to  send  every  year  to 
Louisiana,  two  ships'  loads  of  colonists,  and,  after  nine 
years,  to  assume  all  the  expenses  of  the  administration 
of  the  colony,  including  those  of  the  garrison  and  of  its 
ofiicers ;  it  being  understood  that,  in  consideration  of 
such  a  charge,  he  would  have  the  privilege  of  nominat- 
ing the  ofiicers  to  be  appointed  by  the  king.  In  the 
mean  time,  the  annual  sum  of  fifty  thousand  livres 


CONDITIONS  OF  THE  CHARTER.  103 

($10,000)  was  allowed  to  Crozat  for  the  king's  share 
of  the  expenses  required  by  Louisiana.  It  was  further 
provided  that  the  laws,  ordinances,  customs,  and  usages 
of  the  Prevostship  and  Viscounty  of  Paris  should  form 
the  legislation  of  the  colony.  There  was  also  to  be  a 
government  council,  similar  to  the  one  established  in 
San  Domingo  and  Martinique. 

This  charter  of  concessions  virtually  made  Crozat  the 
supreme  lord  and  master  of  Louisiana.  Thus  Louisiana 
was  dealt  with,  as  if  it  had  been  a  royal  farm,  and 
leased  by  Louis  the  XlVth  to  the  highest  bidder.  It 
is  a  mere  business  transaction,  but  which  colors  itself 
with  the  hue  of  romance,  when  it  is  remembered  that 
Louisiana  was  the  farm,  Louis  the  XlVth  the  landlord, 
and  that  Anthony  Crozat  was  the  farmer. 

Anthony  Crozat  was  one  of  those  men  who  dignify 
commerce,  and  recall  to  memory  those  princely  mer- 
chants, of  whom  Genoa,  Venice,  and  Florence  boasted 
of  yore.  Born  a  peasant's  son,  on  the  estate  of  one  of 
the  great  patricians  of  France,  he  was,  when  a  boy,  re- 
marked for  the  acuteness  of  his  intellect ;  and  having 
the  good  fortune  of  being  the  foster  brother  of  the  only 
son  of  his  feudal  lord,  he  was  sent  to  school  by  his  noble 
patron,  received  the  rudiments  of  education,  and  at 
fifteen  was  placed,  as  clerk,  in  a  commercial  house. 
Then,  by  the  protection  of  that  nobleman,  who  never 
ceased  to  evince  the  liveliest  interest  in  his  fate,  and 
particularly  by  the  natural  ascendency  of  his  strong 
genius,  he  rose,  in  the  course  of  twenty  years,  to  be  a 
partner  of  his  old  employer,  married  his  daughter,  and 
shortly  after  this  auspicious  event,  found  himself,  on 
the  death  of  his  father-in-law,  one  of  the  richest  mer- 
chants in  Europe.  He  still  continued  to  be  favored  by 
circumstances,  and  having  had  the  good  fortune  of 
loaning  large  sums  of  money  to  the  government  in  cases 


104  HISTORY  OF  CROZAT. 

of  emergency,  he  was  rewarded  for  his  services  by  his 
being  ennobled  and  created  Marquis  du  Chatel. 

So  far,  Crozat  had  known  but  the  sunny  side  of  life  ; 
but  for  every  man  the  hour  of  trial  must  strike,  sooner 
or  later,  on  the  clock  of  fate,  and  the  length  or  in- 
tenseness  of  the  felicity  that  one  has  enjoyed,  is  generally 
counterbalanced  by  a  proportionate  infliction  of  calam- 
ity. Happy  is  he,  perhaps,  whom  adversity  meets  on 
the  threshold  of  existence,  and  accompanies  through 
part  of  his  career.  Then,  the  nerves  of  youth  may  re- 
sist the  shock,  and  be  even  improved  by  the  struggle. 
The  mind  and  body,  disciplined  by  the  severe  trial 
through  which  they  have  passed,  have  time  to  substitute 
gains  for  losses  in  the  account  book  of  life.  At  any 
rate,  when  the  tribute  of  tears  and  sufferings  is  early 
paid,  the  debtor  may  hope  for  a  clear  and  bright  me- 
ridian ;  and  when  the  sun  of  his  destiny  sinks  down  in 
the  west,  he  has  some  right  to  expect,  if  clouds  should 
gather  round  the  setting  orb,  that  it  will  only  be  to 
gladden  the  sight  by  the  gorgeousness  of  their  colors. 
But  if  smiling  fortune,  after  having  rocked  her  favorite 
in  his  cradle,  gives  him  her  uninterrupted  attendance 
until  his  manhood  is  past,  she  is  very  apt  to  desert  him 
on  the  first  cold  approach  of  old  age,  when  he  is  most 
in  need  of  her  support ;  for,  the  stern  decree  that  man 
is  born  to  suffer,  must  be  accomplished  before  the  por- 
-tals  of  another  life  are  open ;  and  then,  woe  to  the  gray- 
headed  victim,  who,  after  long  days  of  luxurious  ease, 
finds  himself  suddenly  abandoned,  a  martyr  in  the 
arena  of  judgment,  to  the  fangs  and  jaws  of  the  wild 
beasts  of  an  unreeling  and  scoffing  world.  Woe  to 
him,  if  his  Christian  faith  is  not  bound  to  his  heart  by 
adamantine  chains,  to  subdue  physical  pain,  to  arm  his 
Boul  with  divine  fortitude,  and  grace  his  last  moments 
with  sweet  dignity  and  calm  resignation ! 


DEATH  OF  HIS  WIFE.  105 

Crozat  was  doomed  to  make  this  sad  experiment. 
The  first  shaft  aimed  at  him  fell  on  his  wife,  whom  he 
lost,  ten  years  after  the  birth  of  his  only  child,  a  daugh- 
ter, now  the  sole  hope  of  his  house.  Intense  was  his 
sorrow,  and  never  to  be  assuaged,  for  no  common  con> 
panion  his  wife  had  been.  Looking  up  to  him  with 
affectionate  reverence  as  one,  whom  the  laws,  both  di- 
vine and  human,  had  appointed  as  her  guide,  she  had 
lived  rather  in  him  than  in  herself.  She  had  been  ab- 
sorbed into  her  husband,  and  the  business  of  her  whole 
life  had  been  to  study  and  to  anticipate  his  wishes  and 
wants.  Endowed  with  all  the  graces  of  her  sex,  and 
with  a  cultivated  intellect  chastened  by  modesty,  which 
hardly  left  any  thing  to  be  desired  for  its  perfection, 
she  rendered  sweeter  the  part  of  ministering  angel 
which  she  had  assumed,  to  bless  him  in  this  world. 
With  feminine  art,  she  had  incorporated  herself  with 
his  organization,  and  gliding  into  the  very  essence  of 
his  soul,  she  had  become  the  originating  spring  of  all 
his  thoughts  and  sentiments.  It  was  beautiful  to  see, 
how,  entwining  herself  round  his  conceptions,  his  voli- 
tion and  actions,  she  had  made  herself  a  component 
part  of  his  individuality,  so  that  she  really  was  flesh  of 
his  flesh  and  bone  of  his  bone.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at, 
that  when  she  died,  he  felt  that  the  luminary  which 
lighted  up  his  path  had  been  extinguished,  and  that  a 
wheel  had  suddenly  stopped  within  himself?  From 
that  fatal  event,  there  never  was  a  day  when  the  recol- 
lections of  the  past  did  not  fill  his  soul  with  anguish. 

Crozat's  only  consolation  was  his  daughter.  The 
never-ceasing  anxiety  with  which  he  watched  over  her, 
until  she  grew  into  womanhood,  would  beggar  all  de- 
scription ;  and  even  then  she  remained  a  frail  flower, 
which,  to  be  kept  alive,  required  to  be  fanned  by  the 
gentlest  zephyrs,  and  to  be  softly  watered  from  that 


106  HISTORY  OF  CROZAT. 

spring  which  gushes  from  the  deep  well  of  the  heart, 
at  the  touch  of  true  affection.  She  was  exquisitely 
beautiful,  but  there  was  this  peculiarity' in  her  beauty, 
that  although  her  person  presented  that  voluptuous 
symmetry,  that  rich  fullness  of  form,  and  that  delicate 
roundness  of  outline  which  artists  admire,  yet  soul  pre- 
dominated in  her  so  much  over  matter,  that  she  looked 
rather  like  a  spirit  of  the  air,  than  an  incarnation  of 
mortality.  She  produced  the  effect  of  an  unnatural 
apparition :  forgetting  the  fascinations  of  the  flesh,  one 
would  gaze  at  her  as  something  not  of  this  world,  and 
feel  for  her  such  love  as  angels  may  inspire.  She  ap- 
peared to  be  clothed  in  terrestrial  substance,  merely 
because  it  was  necessary  to  that  earthly  existence 
which  she  wore  as  a  garment  not  intended  for  her,  and 
which  had  been  put  on  only  by  mistake.  She  was  out 
of  place:  there  was  something  in  her  organization, 
which  disqualified  her  for  the  companionship  of  the 
sons  of  Eve :  she  looked  as  if  she  had  strayed  from  a 
holier  sphere.  Those  who  knew  her  were  impressed 
with  an  undefinable  feeling  that  she  was  a  temporary 
loan  made  to  earth  by  heaven,  and  that  the  slightest 
disappointment  of  the  heart  in  her  nether  career,  would 
send  her  instantly  to  a  fitter  and  more  congenial  abode. 
Alas !  there  are  beings  invested  with  such  exquisite 
sensibility,  that  the  vile  clay  which  enters  into  their 
composition,  and  which  may  be  intended  as  a  protect- 
ing texture,  without  which  human  life  would  be  intol- 
erable for  the  spirit  within,  imbibing  too  much  of  the 
ethereal  essence  to  which  it  is  allied,  ceases  to  be  a 
shield  against  the  ills  we  are  heirs  to,  in  this  valley  of 
miseries.  It  is  a  mark  set  upon  them !  It  is  a  pledge 
that  the  wounded  soul,  writhing  under  repeated  inflic- 
tions, will  wear  out  its  frail  tenement,  and  soon  escape 
from  its  ordeal.  Such  was  the  threatened  fate  of  An- 


HIS  DAUGHTER  AITOREA.  107 

drea,  the  daughter  of  Crozat.  And  he  knew  it,  the 
poor  father!  he  knew  it,  and  he  trembled!  and  he 
lived  in  perpetual  fear :  and  he  would  clasp  his  hands, 
and  in  such  agonies  as  the  paternal  heart  only  knows, 
kneeling  down,  humbling  himself  in  the  dust,  he  would 
pour  out  prayers  (oh,  how  eloquent!)  that  the  Al- 
mighty, in  his  infinite  mercy,  would  spare  his  child ! 

Crozat  had  sedulously  kept  up  the  closest  relations 
with  his  noble  friend  and  patron,  to  whom  there  had 
also  been  born  but  one  heir,  a  son,  the  sole  pillar  of  a 
ducal  house,  connected  with  all  the  imperial  and  royal 
dynasties  of  Europe.  A  short  time  after  his  wife's 
death,  Crozat  had  had  the  misfortune  to  follow  to  the 
grave  the  duke,  his  foster  brother ;  and  his  daughter 
Andrea,  who  was  known  to  lack  at  home  the  gentle 
nursing  of  a  mother,  had  been  tendered  the  splendid 
hospitality  of  the  dowager  duchess,  where  she  had 
grown  up  in  a  sort  of  sisterly  intimacy  with  the  young 
duke.  There  she  had  conceived,  unknowingly  to  her- 
self at  first,  the  most  intense  passion  for  her  youthful 
companion,  which,  when  it  revealed  itself  to  her  dis- 
mayed heart,  was  kept  carefully  locked  up  in  its  inmost 
recesses.  Poor  maiden!  The  longum  bibere  amorem 
was  fatally  realized  with  her,  and  she  could  not  tear 
herself  from  the  allurements  of  the  banquet  upon  which 
she  daily  feasted  her  affections.  Unknown  her  secret, 
she  lived  in  fancied  security,  and,  for  a  while,  enjoyed 
as  pure  a  happiness  as  may  be  attained  to — the  happi- 
ness of  dreams ! 

One  day,  a  rumor  arose  that  a  matrimonial  alliance 
was  in  the  way  of  preparation  for  that  lineal  descend- 
ant of  a  princely  race,  for  the  young  duke,  who  was  the 
concealed  idol  of  her  heart.  There  are  emotions  which 
it  would  be  too  much  for  human  endurance  to  hide  from 
a  sympathetic  eye,  much  less  from  parental  penetration, 


108  HISTORY  OF  CROZAT. 

and  on  that  day  the  terrible  truth  burst  upon  Crozat, 
and  stunned  him  with  an  unexpected  blow.  It  was  a 
hurricane  of  woes  sweeping  through  his  heart :  he  felt 
as  if  he  and  his  child  were  in  a  tornado,  out  of  which  to 
save  her  was  impossible.  Too  well  he  knew  his  An- 
drea, and  too  well  he  knew  that  she  would  not  survive 
the  withering  of  her  hopes,  wild  as  they  were !  "  Time !" 
exclaimed  he,  as  he  paced  his  room  with  hurried  steps, 
holding  communion  with  himself,  "  Time,  that  worker 
of  great  things,  must  be  gained !  But  how  ?"  A  sud- 
den thought  flashed  through  his  brain  !  Thank  God, 
he  clutched  the  remedy !  Was  it  not  currently  re- 
ported and  believed  that  the  betrothed  of  the  duke 
loved  one,  of  equally  noble  birth,  but  whose  proffered 
hand  had  been  rejected  by  an  ambitious  father,  merely 
because  fortune,  with  her  golden  gifts,  did  not  back  his 
pretensions  ?  That  was  enough !  And  Crozat,  on  that 
very  day,  had  sought  and  found  the  despairing  lover. 
"  Sir !"  said  he  to  the  astonished  youth,  "  in  the  civil 
wars  which  desolated  France  during  the  minority  of 
Louis  the  XlVth,  and  which  ruined  your  family,  seve- 
ral millions  were  extorted  from  your  father  by  one, 
who  then  had  the  power.  Here  they  are — it  is  a  res- 
titution— ask  no  name — I  am  a  mere  agent  and  bound 
to  secrecy."  The  strange  tale  was  taken  as  true,  and 
in  a  short  time  the  betrothed  of  the  young  duke  was 
led  to  the  hymeneal  altar  by  a  more  successful  rival. 

Crozat  had  been  a  traitor  and  a  liar ! — a  traitor  to 
his  friend  and  benefactor's  son  !  But  he  was  a  father ! 
— and  he  saw  his  daughter's  tomb  already  wide  open 
and  gaping  for  the  expected  prey !  And  was  she  not 
to  be  rescued  at  any  cost  ?  And  was  he  to  stand  with 
folded  arms,  and  to  remain  passive,  while,  in  his  sight, 
de-pair  slowly  chiseled  the  cold  sepulchral  marble  des- 
tined for  his  child?  No! — he  saved  her,  and  did  not 


HISTORY  OF  CROZAT.  109 

stop  to  inquire  whether  the  means  he  employed  were 
legitimate.  Now,  he  saw  her  smile  again  and  resume, 
as  it  were,  that  current  of  life  which  was  fast  ebbing 
away ! — and  he  was  happy !  And  had  he  not  a  suffi- 
cient excuse  to  plead  at  that  seat  of  judgment  which 
every  man  has  within  his  breast,  when  the  shrill  voice 
of  conscience  rose  against  him  in  accusation,  and  said, 
"  Thou  hast  done  wrong  !  to  save  thyself,  or  thine,  thou 
hast  been  recreant  to  thy  trust — thou  hast  injured  thy 
neighbor,  and  acted  dishonorably  ?"  Crozat,  however, 
was  not  the  man  to  lay  a  flattering  unction  to  his  soul. 
There  was  in  him  no  false  logic  of  a  corrupt  mind  to 
argue  successfully  against  the  plain  voice  of  truth :  his 
were  not  the  ears  of  the  wicked,  deaf  to  the  admonitions 
of  our  inward  monitor.  However  gently  conscience 
might  have  spoken  her  disapprobation,  he  heard  it, 
and  stood  self-condemned. 

He  went  to  his  patron's  widow,  to  the  duchess,  and 
told  her  all — and  prostrating  himself  at  her  feet,  await- 
ed her  sentence.  She  raised  him  gently  from  his  hum- 
ble posture,  and  self-collected,  soaring  as  it  were  above 
human  passions,  while  she  riveted  upon  him  the  stead- 
fast look  of  her  calm,  blue  eyes,  thus  she  spoke  with 
Juno-like  dignity,  and  with  a  sweet,  musical  voice,  but 
seeming  as  cold  to  the  afflicted  father,  in  spite  of  its 
bland  intonations,  as  the  northern  wind :  "  Crozat,  this 
is  a  strange  and  a  moving  tale.  You  stand  forgiven,  for 
you  have  acted  as  nature  would  prompt  most  men  to  do, 
and  even  if  your  error  had  been  more  grievous,  your  man- 
ly candor  and  frank  confession  would  redeem  the  guilt. 
Therefore,  let  it  pass ;  let  your  conscience  be  relieved 
from  further  pangs  on  this  subject.  My  esteem  and 
friendship  stand  the  same  for  you  as  before.  "What 
grieves  me  to  the  heart,  is  the  deplorable  situation  of 
your  Andrea,  who  is  mine  also,  and  whom  I  love  like 


110  HISTORY  OF  CROZAT. 

a  daughter,  al though,  she  can  not  be  permitted  to  assume 
such  a  relation  to  me  in  the  eye  of  the  world.  She  is 
young,  and  it  shall  be  our  special  care,  by  gentle 
means,  to  cure  her  by  degrees  of  the  wild  passion  which 
has  possessed  her  soul,  poor  child.  As  this,  our  first 
conversation  on  this  painful  topic,  shall  be  the  last,  I 
wish  to  express  my  sentiments  to  you  with  sufficient 
fullness,  that  I  may  be  clearly  understood.  I  wish  you 
to  know,  that  miy  heart  is  not  inflated  with  vulgar 
pride.  I  do  not  think  that  my  blood  is  different  from 
yours  in  its  composition,  and  is  noble  solely  because  I 
descend  from  a  particular  breed,  and  that  yours  is  vile, 
because  the  accidental  circumstance  of  birth  has  placed 
you  among  the  plebeians  and  what  we  call  the  base  and 
the  low-born.  A  peasant's  son,  if  he  be  virtuous  and 
great  in  soul  and  in  mind,  is  more  in  my  estimation 
than  a  king's,  if  an  idiot  or  a  wicked  man.  Thus  far,  I 
suppose,  we  understand  each  other.  There  is  but  one 
valuable  nobility — that  in  which  hereditary  rank  is 
founded  on  a  long  succession  of  glorious  deeds.  Such  is 
the  case  with  our  house.  It  has  been  an  historical  one, 
trunk  and  branches,  for  much  more  than  twelve  cen- 
turies. Kings,  emperors,  claim  a  kindred  blood  with 
ours.  Our  name  is  indissolubly  bound  with  the  his- 
tory of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  the  annals  of  the  king- 
dom of  France,  in  particular,  may  be  said  to  be  the 
records  of  our  house.  We  have  long  ceased  to  count 
the  famous  knights,  the  high  constables,  the  marshals, 
generals,  and  other  great  men  who  have  sprung  from 
our  fruitful  race.  This  is  what  I  call  nobility.  To  this 
present  day,  none  of  that  race  has  ever  contracted  an 
alliance  which  was  not  of  an  illustrious  and  historical 
character.  It  is  a  principle,  nay  more,  Crozat,  it  is  a 
religion  with  us,  and  it  is  too  late  for  us  to  turn  apos- 
tates. It  is  to  that  creed,  which  we  have  cherished 


HISTORY  OF  CROZAT.  Ill 

from  time  immemorial,  that  we  are  indebted  for  what 
we  are.  If  once  untrue  to  ourselves,  there  is  an  in- 
stinctive presentiment  which  tells  us  that  we  shall  be 
blasted  with  the  curse  of  heaven.  Right  or  wrong,  it 
is  a  principle,  I  say ;  and  there  is  such  mysterious  vital- 
ity and  power  in  a  principle,  be  it  what  it  may,  that  if 
strictly  and  systematically  adhered  to  for  ages,  it  will 
work  wonders.  Therefore  the  traditions  of  our  house 
must  stand  unbroken  forever,  coeval  with  its  existence, 
and  remain  imperishable  pyramids  of  our  faith  in  our 
own  worth. 

"  I  know  that  your  daughter,  whom  I  have  raised  in 
my  lap,  and  whose  transcendent  qualities  I  appreciate 
as  they  deserve,  would  be  the  best  of  wives,  and  bless 
my  son  with  earthly  bliss.  But,  Crozat,  those  of  my 
race  are  not  born  to  be  happy,  but  to  be  great.  This 
is  the  condition  of  their  existence.  They  do  not  marry 
for  themselves,  but  for  the  glorification  of  their  house. 
It  is  a  sacred  mission,  and  it  must  be  fulfilled.  Every 
animated  thing  in  the  creation  must  follow  the  bent  of 
its  nature.  The  wooing  dove  may  be  satisfied  with  the 
security  of  its  lot  in  the  verdant  foliage  of  the  forest, 
but  the  eagle  must  speed  to  the  sun,  even  if  he  be  con- 
sumed by  its  rays.  Such  being  the  fate  of  our  race,  a 
hard  one  in  many  respects,  you  see,  my  dear  Crozat — 
and  I  say  so  with  deep  regret  at  the  consequences  which 
you  anticipate,  not  however  without  a  hope  that  they 
may  be  averted — -you  must  clearly  see  that  an  alliance 
between  our  families  is  an  impossibility.  It  would  be 
fatal  to  your  daughter,  who  would  be  scorched  by  as- 
cending, Phaeton-like,  into  a  sphere  not  calculated  for 
her ;  and  it  would  be  also  fatal  to  my  son,  who  would 
be  disgraced  for  his  being  recreant  to  his  ancestors  and 
to  his  posterity.  You  deserve  infinite  credit  for  having 
risen  to  the  summit  where  you  now  stand.  You  have 


112  HISTORY  OF  CROZAT. 

been  ennobled,  and  you  are  one  of  the  greatest  mer- 
chants of  the  age,  but  you  are  not  yet  a  Medici !  You 
have  not  forced  your  way,  like  that  family,  into  the 
ranks  of  the  potentates  of  the  earth.  If,  indeed — but 
why  talk  of  such  idle  dreams  ?  Adieu,  Crozat,  be  com- 
forted— be  of  good  cheer. — Things  may  not  be  as  bad 
as  you  think  for  your  daughter.  Her  present  attach- 
ment not  being  encouraged,  she  may  in  time  form 
another  one.  Farewell,  my  friend,  put  your  faith  in 
God :  he  is  the  best  healer  of  the  wounds  of  the  heart !" 
Crozat  bowed  low  to  the  duchess,  whose  extended 
hand  he  kissed  reverentially,  and  he  withdrew  from 
the  chilling  frigidity  of  her  august  presence.  Crouch- 
ing under  the  weight  of  his  misfortune,  and  under  the 
consciousness  of  the  invincible  and  immortal  pride  he 
had  to  deal  with,  he  tottered  to  his  solitary  room,  and 
sinking  into  a  large  gothic  chair,  buried  his  feverish 
head  into  his  convulsive  hands.  Hot  tears  trickled 
through  the  contracted  fingers,  and  he  sobbed  and 
groaned  aloud,  when  he  recalled,  one  by  one,  all  the 
words  of  the  duchess,  as  they  slowly  fell  from  her  lips, 
burning  his  soul,  searing  his  brains,  filtering  through 
his  heart  like  distilled  drops  of  liquid  fire.  Suddenly 
he  started  up  with  fierce  energy  ;  his  face  was  lighted 
with  dauntless  resolution  :  he  ground  his  teeth,  clenched 
his  fist,  as  if  for  a  struggle,  and  shook  it  in  defiance  of 
some  invisible  adversary,  while  he  moved  on  with  ex- 
panded chest  and  with  a  frame  dilating  into  the  ma- 
jesty of  some  imaginary  command.  "  O  Daughter,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  thou  shalt  be  saved,  and  if  necessary,  I  will 
accomplish  impossibilities.  Did  not  the  proud  duchess 
say  that  if  I  were  a  Medici !  .  .  .  the  ruler  of  prov- 
inces ! — if  I  had  an  historical  name  ?  She  did  !  and  I 
know  that  she  would  keep  her  word.  Well  then  !  ye 
powers  of  heaven  or  hell,  that  helped  the  Medici,  I  bow 


ORIGIN  OF  HIS  CHARTER.  113 

to  ye,  and  call  ye  to  my  aid,  by  the  only  incantation 
which  I  know,  the  strong  magic  of  an  energetic  mind. 
I  invoke  your  assistance,  be  the  sacrifice  on  my  part 
whatever  it  may : — I  will  sign  any  bond  ye  please — I 
will  set  my  all  on  the  cast  of  a  die — and  gamble  against 
fate.  My  daughter  is  the  stake,  and  death  to  her  and 
to  me  the  forfeit  !"  This  was  a  sinful  ebullition  of  pas- 
sion— the  only  excuse  the  paroxysm  of  a  delirious 
mind.  But  still  it  was  impious,  and  his  protecting 
angel  averted  his  face  and  flew  upward.  Alas !  poor 
Crozat ! 

Hence  the  origin  of  that  charter,  by  which  Louisiana 
was  ceded,  as  it  were,  to  Crozat.  He  flattered  himself 
with  the  hope  that,  if  successful  in  his  gigantic  enter- 
prise, a  few  years  might  ripen  the  privileges  he  had 
obtained  into  the  concession  of  a  principality,  which  he 
would  form  in  the  New  World,  a  principality  which,  as 
a  great  feudatory  vassal,  he  would  hold  in  subjection  to 
the  crown  of  France.  Then  he  would  say  to  the  proud 
duchess,  "  I  am  a  Medici.  My  name  outweighs  many 
a  haughty  one  in  the  scales  of  history : — my  nobility 
rests  not  only  on  title,  but  on  noble  deeds.  These 
were  your  words — I  hold  you  to  them — redeem  your 
pledge — one  of  your  blood  can  not  be  false — I  claim 
your  son — I  give  him  a  princess  for  his  bride,  and  do- 
mains ten  times  broader  than  France,  or  any  kingdom 
in  Europe,  for  her  dowry  !" 

So  hoped  the  heart  of  the  father — so  schemed  the 
head  of  the  great  merchant !  What  man  ever  had 
stronger  motives  to  fire  his  genius?  What  ambition 
more  sacred  and  more  deserving  of  reward  than  his  ? 
And  yet  none,  save  one,  guessed  at  the  motives  which 
actuated  him  !  He  was  taxed  with  being  insatiable  of 
wealth :  people  wondered  at  his  gigantic  avidity. 
Some  there  were,  who  shrugged  their  shoulders,  and 

H 


114  THE  HOPES  OF  CROZAT. 

said  that  he  was  tempting  fate,  that  it  was  time  for  him 
to  be  satisfied  with  what  he  had,  without  exposing  his 
present  wonderful  acquisitions  for  the  uncertainty  of  a 
greater  fortune.  Such  are  the  blind  judgments  of  the 
world  !  Crozat  was  blamed  for  being  too  ambitious, 
and  envy  railed  at  the  inordinate  avidity  of  the  rash 
adventurer,  when  pity  ought  to  have  wept  over  the 
miseries  of  the  broken-hearted  father.  On  the  dizzy 
eminence  whither  he  had  ascended,  Crozat,  when  he 
looked  round  for  sympathy,  was  met  by  the  basilisk 
stare  of  a  jealous,  cold-blooded  world,  who  stood  by, 
calculating  his  chances  of  success,  and  grinning  in  an- 
ticipation at  the  wished-for  failure  of  his  defeated 
schemes.  At  such  a  sight,  his  heart  sank  within  his 
breast,  and  elevating  his  hands,  clasped  in  prayer, 
"  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace,"  he  said,  "  ye  know 
that  it  is  no  ambitious  cravings,  but  the  racked  feelings 
of  a  father,  that  urge  me  to  the  undertaking,  upon 
which  I  call  down  your  blessings.  Be  ye  my  friends 
and  protectors  in  heaven,  for  Crozat  has  none  on  this 
earth." 


FOURTH  LECTURE, 


LAMOTHE  CADILLAC,  GOVERNOR  OF  LOUISIANA — SITUATION  OF  THE  COLONT  IN  1713 
— FEUD  BETWEEN  CADILLAC  AND  BIENVILLE — CHARACTER  OF  RICHEBOURG— 
FIRST  EXPEDITION  AGAINST  THE  NATCHEZ — DE  L'EPINAY  SUCCEEDS  CADILLAC — 
THE  CURATE  DE  LA  VENTE — EXPEDITION  OF  ST.  DENIS  TO  MEXICO — His  AD- 
VENTURES— JALLOT,  THE  SURGEON — IN  1717  CROZAT  GIVES  UP  HIS  CHARTER — 
His  DEATH. 

\ 

WHEN  Crozat  obtained  the  royal  charter,  granting 
him  so  many  commercial  privileges  in  Louisiana,  the 
military  forces  which  were  in  the  colony,  and  which 
constituted  its  only  protection,  did  not  exceed  two 
companies  of  infantry  of  fifty  men  each.  There  were 
also  seventy-five  Canadians  in  the  pay  of  the  king,  and 
they  were  used  for  every  species  of  service.  The  bal- 
ance of  the  population  hardly  came  up  to  three  hundred 
souls,  and  that  population,  small  as  it  was,  and  almost 
imperceptible,  happened  to  be  scattered  over  a  bound- 
less territory,  where  they  could  not  communicate  to- 
gether without  innumerable  difficulties,  frightful  dan- 
gers, and  without  delays  which,  in  these  our  days  of 
rapid  locomotion,  can  scarcely  be  sufficiently  appreci- 
ated. As  to  the  blacks,  who  now  have  risen  to  such 
importance  in  our  social  polity,  they  did  not  number 
more. than  twenty  heads.  It  is  probable,  that  of  this 
scanty  population,  there  were  not  fifty  persons  in  the 
present  limits  of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  and  the  con- 
trast, which  now  presents  itself  to  the  mind,  affords  a 
rich  treat  to  the  imagination,  and  particularly  to  our 


116  FORTS  CONSTRUCTED. 

national  pride,  since  we  were  the  wonder-working 
power. 

The  possession  of  the  province  of  Louisiana,  if  pos- 
session it  can  be  called,  France  had  secured  by  the  con- 
struction of  five  forts.  They  were  located  at  Mobile,  at 
Biloxi,  Ship  Island,  Dauphine  Island,  and  on  the  bank 
of  the  Mississippi.  These  fortifications  were  of  a  very 
humble  nature,  and  their  materials  were  chiefly  com- 
posed of  stakes,  logs,  and  clay.  They  suificed,  however, 
to  intimidate  thelhdians.  Such  were  the  paltry  results, 
after  fifteen  years,  of  the  attempt  made  by  a  powerful 
government  to  colonize  Louisiana  ;  and  now,  one  single 
man,  a  private  individual,  was  daring  enough  to  grapple 
and  struggle  with  an  undertaking,  which,  so  far,  had 
proved  abortive  in  the  hands  of  the  great  Louis  the 
XlVth! 

It  must  be  remembered  that  De  Muys,  who  had  been 
appointed  to  supersede  Bienville,  had  died  in  Havana  in 
1707,  and  that  the  youthful  founder  of  the  colony  had, 
by  that  event,  remained  Governor  ad  interim  of  Lou- 
isiana. But  on  the  17th  of  May,  1713,  a  great  change 
had  come  over  the  face  of  things,  and  the  colonists 
stood  on  the  tiptoe  of  expectation,  when  they  were  in- 
formed that  a  ship  had  arrived  with  Lamothe  Cadillac, 
as  Governor,  Duclos  as  Commissary  in  the  place  of 
D'Artaguette,  who  had  returned  to  France,  Lebas  as 
Comptroller,  Dirigoin  and  La  Loire  des  Ursins,  as  the 
agents  of  Crozat  in  the  colony.  Bienville  was  retained 
as  Lieutenant  Governor,  and  it  was  expected  that,  in 
that  subordinate  office,  he  would,  from  his  knowledge 
of  the  state  of  aifairs  in  the  province,  be  of  signal  use 
to  his  successor,  and  be  a  willing  instrument,  which  the 
supposed  superior  abilities  of  Lamothe  Cadillac  would 
turn  to  some  goodly  purpose.  This  certainly  was  a 
compliment  paid  to  the  patriotism  of  Bienville,  but 


ARRIVAL  OF  LAMOTHE  CADILLAC.  117 

was  it  not  disregarding  too  much  the  frailties  of  human 
nature  ?  Cheerfully  to  obey,  where  one  formerly  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  issue  the  word  of  command,  is 
not  an  e very-day  occurrence,  and  it  is  a  trial  to  which 
politic  heads  ought  not  to  expose  the  virtue  of  man. 

The  principal  instructions  given  by  Crozat  to  La- 
inothe  Cadillac  were,  that  he  should  diligently  look 
after  mines,  and  endeavor  to  find  out  an  opening  for  the 
introduction  of  his  goods  and  merchandise  into  the 
Spanish  colonies  in  Mexico,  either  with  the  consent  of 
the  authorities,  or  without  it,  by  smuggling.  If  he 
succeeded  in  these  two  enterprises,  Crozat  calculated 
that  he  would  speedily  obtain  inexhaustible  wealth,  such 
wealth  as  would  enable  him  to  throw  a  large  popula- 
tion into  Louisiana,  as  it  were  by  magic,  and  to  realize 
the  fond  dreams  of  his  paternal  heart.  Impatient  of 
delay,  he  had,  in  order  to  stimulate  the  exertions  of 
Lamothe  Cadillac,  secured  to  him  a  considerable  share 
in  the  profits  which  he  hoped  to  realize.  Lamothe  Ca- 
dillac had  fought  with  valor  in  Canada,  and  as  a  reward 
for  his  services  (so,  at  least,  his  commission  declared), 
had  been  appointed  by  the  king,  governor  of  Louisiana. 
Had  Crozat  known  the  deficiencies  of  that  officer's  in- 
tellect, he,  no  doubt,  would  have  strongly  remonstrated 
against  such  a  choice. 

Lamothe  Cadillac  was  born  on  the  banks  of  the 
Garonne,  in  the  province  of  Gascony,  in  France.  He 
was  of  an  ancient  family,  which  for  several  centuries, 
had,  by  some  fatality  or  other,  been  rapidly  sliding  down 
from  the  elevated  position  which  it  had  occupied. 
When  Lamothe  Cadillac  was  ushered  into  life,  the  do- 
mains of  his  ancestors  had,  for  many  past  generations, 
been  reduced  to  a  few  acres  of  land.  That  small 
estate  was  dignified,  however,  with  an  old  dilapidated 
edifice,  which  bore  the  name  of  castle,  although,  at  a 


118  HISTORY  OF  CADILLAC. 

distance,  to  an  unprejudiced  eye,  it  presented  some  un- 
lucky resemblance  to  a  barn.  A  solitary  tower  dressed, 
as  it  were,  in  a  gown  of  moss  and  ivy,  raised  its  gray 
head  to  a  height  which  might  have  been  called  respect- 
able, and  which  appeared  to  offer  special  attraction  to 
crows,  swallows,  and  bats.  Much  to  the  mortification 
of  the  present  owner,  it  had  been  called  by  the  young 
wags  of  the  neighborhood,  "  Cadillac's  Rookery"  and 
was  currently  known  under  this  ungenteel  appellation. 
Cadillac  had  received  a  provincial  and  domestic  educa- 
tion, and  had,  to  his  twenty-fifth  year,  moved  in  a  very 
contracted  sphere.  Nay,  it  may  be  said  that  he  had 
almost  lived  in  solitude,  for  he  had  lost  both  his  parents, 
when  hardly  eighteen  summers  had  passed  over  his 
head,  and  he  had  since  kept  company  with  none  but 
the  old  tutor  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  such  classi- 
cal attainments  as  he  had  acquired.  His  mind  being 
as  much  curtailed  in  its  proportions,  as  his  patrimonial 
acres,  his  intellectual  vision  could  not  extend  very  far, 
and  if  Cadillac  was  not  literally  a  dunce,  it  was  well 
known  that  Cadillac's  wits  would  never  run  away  with 
him. 

Whether  it  was  owing  to  this  accidental  organiza- 
tion of  his  brain,  or  not,  certain  it  is  that  one  thing 
afforded  the  most  intense  delight  to  Cadillac  : — it  was, 
that  no  blood  so  refined  as  his  own  ran  in  the  veins  of 
any  other  human  being,  and  that  his  person  was  the 
very  incarnation  of  nobility.  With  such  a  conviction 
rooted  in  his  heart,  it  is  not  astonishing  that  his  tall, 
thin,  and  emaciated  body  should  have  stiffened  itself 
into  the  most  accurate  observation  of  the  perpendicular. 
Indeed,  it  was  exceedingly  pleasant  and  exhilarating  to 
the  lungs,  to  see  Cadillac,  on  a  Sunday  morning,  strut- 
ting along  in  full  dress,  on  his  way  to  church,  through 
the  meager  village  attached  to  his  hereditary  domain. 


HISTORY  OF  CADILLAC.  119 

His  bow  to  the  mayor  and  to  the  curate  was  something 
rare,  an  exquisite  burlesque  of  infinite  majesty,  thawing 
into  infinite  affability.  His  ponderous  wig,  the  curls  of 
which  spread  like  a  peacock's  tail,  seemed  to  be  alive 
with  conscious  pride  at  the  good  luck  it  had  of  cover- 
ing a  head  of  such  importance  to  the  human  race. 
His  eyes,  in  whose  favor  nature  had  been  pleased  to 
deviate  from  the  oval  into  the  round  shape,  were  pos- 
sessed with  a  stare  of  astonishment,  as  if  they  meant 
to  convey  the  expression  that  the  spirit  within  was  in 
a  trance  of  stupefaction  at  the  astounding  fact  that  the 
being  it  animated  did  not  produce  a  more  startling 
effect  upon  the  world.  The  physiognomy  which  I  am 
endeavoring  to  depict,  was  rendered  more  remarkable 
by  a  stout,  cocked  up,  snub  nose,  which  looked  as  if  it 
had  hurried  back,  in  a  fright,  from  the  lips,  to  squat  in 
rather  too  close  proximity  to  the  eyes,  and  which,  with 
its  dilated  nostrils,  seemed  always  on  the  point  of 
sneezing  at  something  thrusting  itself  between  the  wind 
and  its  nobility.  His  lips  wore  a  mocking  smile,  as  if 
sneering  at  the  strange  circumstance  that  a  Cadillac 
should  be  reduced  to  be  an  obscure,  penniless  individ- 
ual. But,  if  Cadillac  had  his  weak  points,  it  must  also 
be  told  that  he  was  not  without  his  strong  ones.  Thus, 
he  had  a  great  deal  of  energy,  bordering,  it  is  true, 
upon  obstinacy ; — he  was  a  rigidly  moral  and  pious 
man ; — and  he  was  too  proud  not  to  be  valiant. 

With  a  mind  so  framed,  was  it  to  be  wondered  at 
that  Cadillac  deemed  it  a  paramount  duty  to  himself 
and  to  his  Maker,  not  to  allow  his  race  to  become  ex- 
tinct ?  Acting  under  a*keen  sense  of  this  duty,  and  im- 
pressed with  a  belief  that  he  might,  by  a  rich  alliance, 
restore  his  house  to  that  ancient  splendor  which  he  con- 
sidered as  its  birthright,  but  of  which  evil  tongues  said, 
that  it  was  indeed  so  truly  ancient,  that  it  had  long 


120  CADILLAC'S  MARRIAGE— APPOINTED  CAPTAIN. 

ceased  to  l>e  recorded  in  the  memory  of  man,  he,  one 
day,  issued  in  state  and  in  his  gayest  apparel,  from  his 
feudal  tower,  and  for  miles  around,  paid  formal  visits  to 
all  the  wealthy  patricians  of  his  neighborhood.  He 
was  everywhere  received  with  that  high-bred  courtesy, 
which  those  of  that  class  extend  to  all,  and  particularly 
to  such  as  belong  to  their  own  order,  but  he  was  secretly 
voted  a  quiz.  After  a  few  months  of  ineffectual  efforts, 
Cadillac  returned  to  his  pigeon-hole,  in  the  most  discon- 
solate mood ;  and,  after  a  year's  repining,  he  was  forced 
to  content  himself  with  the  hand  of  a  poor  spinster,  who 
dwelt  in  a  neighboring  town,  where,  like  Cadillac,  she 
lingered  in  all  the  pride  of  unsullied  descent  and  he- 
reditary poverty.  Shortly  after  her  marriage,  the  lady, 
who  was  a  distant  relation  to  the  celebrated  Duke  of 
Lauzun,  recommended  herself  and  her  husband  to  the 
patronage  of  that  nobleman,  who  was  then  one  of  the 
brightest  of  that  galaxy  of  stars  that  adorned  the  court  of 
Louis  the  XlVth.  Her  letter  was  written  in  a  quaint, 
fantastic  style,  and  Lauzun,  who  received  it  on  his  way 
to  the  king's  morning  levee,  showed  it  to  the  monarch, 
and  was  happy  enough,  by  the  drollery  of  his  comments, 
to  force  a  smile  from  those-  august  lips.  Availing  him- 
self of  that  smile,  Lauzun,  who  was  in  one  of  his  good  fits, 
for  the  kindness  of  his  nature  was  rather  problematical, 
and  the  result  of  accident  rather  than  of  disposition,  ob- 
tained for  his  poor  connection  the  appointment  of  cap- 
tain to  one  of  the  companies  of  infantry,  which  had  been 
ordered  to  Canada. 

The  reception  of  this  favor,  with  a  congratulatory 
letter  from  Lauzun,  added  stilts  to  Cadillac's  pomposity, 
and  his  few  dependents  and  vassals  became  really 
astounded  at  the  sublimity  of  his  attitudes.  On  that 
occasion,  the  increased  grandeur  of  his  habitual  car- 
riage was  but  the  translation  of  the  magnificence  of 


CADILLAC  IN  CANADA.  121 

his  cogitations.  He  had  heard  of  the  exploits  of  Cortez 
and  Pizarro,  and  he  came  to  the  logical  conclusion,  in 
his  own  mind,  that  Canada  would  be  as  glorious  a  field 
as  Peru  or  Mexico,  and  that  he  would  at  least  rival 
the  achievements  of  the  Spanish  heroes.  Fame  and 
wealth  were  at  last  within  his  grasp,  and  the  long- 
eclipsed  star  of  the  Cadillacs  would  again  blaze  out 
with  renewed  luster ! 

The  dreams  of  Cadillac  were  soon  put  to  flight  by  sad 
realities,  when  he  landed  in  Canada,  where  hardships  of 
every  kind  assailed  him.  The  snows  and  blasts  of  Si- 
berian winters,  the  heat  of  summers  equal  to  those  of 
Africa,  endless  marches  and  counter-marches  after  a 
wary  and  perfidious  enemy,  visible  only  when  he  could 
attack  with  tenfold  chances  in  his  favor,  the  sufferings 
of  hunger  and  thirst  which  were  among  the  ordinary 
privations  of  his  every-day  life,  the  wants  of  civilization 
so  keenly  felt  amid  all  the  destitution  of  savage  exist- 
ence, days  of  bodily  and  mental  labor,  and  nights  of 
anxious  vigil,  hair-breadth  escapes  on  water  and  on  land, 
the  ever-recurring  danger  of  being  tomahawked  and 
scalped,  the  war-whoops  and  incessant  attacks  of  the  In- 
dians, the  honorable  distinctions  of  wounds  and  of  a 
broken  constitution  in  the  service  of  his  country — these 
were  the  concomitants  and  the  results  of  Cadillac's  ca- 
reer in  Canada  during  twenty  years !  All  this  Cadillac 
had  supported  with  remarkable  fortitude,  although  not 
without  impatience,  wondering  all  the  time  that  some- 
thing or  other  did  not  happen  to  make  him  what  he 
thought  nature  and  his  birth  intended  and  entitled  him 
to  be — a  great  man !  ' 

But  twenty  years  had  elapsed,  and  at  their  expira- 
tion, he  found  himself  no  better  than  a  lieutenant-colo- 
nel. -  To  increase  his  vexation,  he  had  no  other  issue  by 
his  marriage  than  a  daughter,  now  eighteen  years  of  age, 


122  CADILLAC  IN  CANADA. 

and  thus  lie  remained  without  the  prospect  of  having 
an  heir  to  continue  his  line,  and  to  bear  his  noble  name. 
The  disappointment  of  his  hopes  in  this  respect  was  the 
keenest  of  all  his  afflictions ;  he  was  approaching  the 
trying  climacteric  of  fifty-four,  and  he  was  as  poor  as 
when  he  departed  from  the  banks  of  the  Garonne.  A 
lieutenant-colonel  he  was,  and  would  remain,  in  all  prob- 
ability. His  superior  officer  seemed  to  be  marvelously 
tenacious  of  his  post  and  of  life,  and  would  neither  die 
nor  advance  one  step  beyond  his  grade :  bullets  spared 
him,  and  ministers  never  thought  of  his  promotion. 
Thus  it  was  clear,  from  all  appearances,  that  Cadillac 
was  not  in  a  position  soon  to  become  a  marshal  of 
France,  and  that  Canada  was  not  the  land  where  he 
could  acquire  that  wealth  he  was  so  ambitious  of,  to  en- 
shrine his  old  gray-headed  tower,  as  a  curious  relic  of 
the  feudal  power  of  his  ancestry,  within  the  splendid 
architecture  of  a  new  palace,  and  to  revive  the  glories 
of  his  race.  Hence  he  had  imbibed  the  most  intense 
contempt  for  the  barren  country  where  so  much  of  his 
life  had  been  spent  in  vain,  and  he  would  sneer  at  the 
appellation  of  New  France  given  to  Canada ;  he  thought 
it  was  a  disparagement  to  the  beautiful  and  noble  king- 
dom of  which  he  boasted  to  be  a  native,  and  he  fre- 
quently amused  his  brother  officers  with  his  indignation 
on  this  subject.  "  This  world  may  revolve  on  its  axis  to 
all  eternity,"  he  would  say,  "  and  Canada  will  no  more 
be  made  to  resemble  France,  than  a  dwarf  will  ever  be 
the  personification  of  a  giant!"  This  was  a  favorite 
phrase  with  which  he  loved  to  close  his  complaints 
against  the  object  of  his  abomination,  whenever  he  was 
betrayed  into  an  expression  of  his  feelings ;  for  of  late, 
he  had  become  silent  and  moody,  and  only  talked  when 
he  could  not  do  otherwise.  It  was  evident  that  his  mind 
was  wrapped  up  within  itself,  and  absorbed  in  the  solu- 


CADILLAC  GOVERNOR  OF  LOUISIANA.  123 

tion  of  some  problem,  or  the  contemplation  of  a  subject 
which  taxed  all  its  powers  of  thought.  What  could  it 
be  ?  But  at  last  it  was  discovered  that  the  object  of 
Cadillac's  abstracted  cogitations  was  the  constant  blast- 
ing of  all  his  hopes,  in  spite  of  his  mighty  efforts  to  re- 
alize them.  So  strange  did  it  appear  to  him,  that  he 
could  come  to  no  other  conclusion  than  that,  if  he  had 
not  risen  higher  on  the,  stage  of  life,  it  was  necessarily 
because  he  was  spell-bound. 

Cadillac,  since  his  arrival  in  Canada,  had  kept  up, 
with  the  great  connection  he  had  acquired  by  his  mar- 
riage, the  Duke  of  Lauzun,  a  regular  correspondence,  in 
which,  to  the  infinite  glee  of  that  nobleman,  he  used  to 
enumerate  his  manifold  mishaps.  Now,  acting  under 
the  impression  that  he  was  decidedly  the  victim  of  fate 
or  witchcraft,  he  wrote  to  Lauzun  a  long  letter,  in  which 
he  surpassed  himself  in  his  bombastic  style,  and  out- 
heroding  Herod,  poured  out  on  paper,  in  incoherent 
declamations,  the  vexed  spirit  which  ailed  him,  and  cut 
such  antics  in  black  and  white,  that  Lauzun,  on  the  pe- 
rusal of  this  epistolatory  elegy,  laughed  himself  into 
tears,  and  almost  screamed  with  delight.  It  happened, 
at  that  time,  that  the  ministry  was  in  search  of  a  gov- 
ernor for  Louisiana,  and  the  mischievous  Lauzun,  who 
thought  that  the  more  he  exalted  Cadillac,  the  greater 
source  of  merriment  he  prepared  for  himself,  had  suffi- 
cient power  to  have  him  appointed  to  that  office.  This 
profligate  nobleman  never  troubled  his  wits  about  what 
would  become  of  Louisiana  under  such  an  administra- 
tion. Provided  he  found  out  a  fit  theater,  and  had  it 
properly  illuminated,  to  enjoy,  at  his  ease,  the  buffoon- 
eries of  a  favorite  actor,  what  cared  he  for  the  rest  ? 

Before  taking  possession  of  his  government,  Cadillac 
went  to  France  to  receive  the  instructions  of  the  minis- 
try, and  to  visit  his  paternal  domain.  His  return  pro- 


124  CADILLAC  VISITS  HIS  BIRTHPLACE. 

duced  no  slight  sensation  within  a  radius  of  forty  miles 
round  his  so  long-deserted  hearth.  If  the  waggish  boys 
who  used  to  torment  him  with  their  pranks  had  grown 
into  manhood,  tradition  had  handed  down  so  much  of 
Cadillac's  peculiarities  to  their  successors,  that  when  he 
appeared  before  them,  it  was  not  as  a  stranger,  but  rather 
as  an  old  acquaintance.  Dressed  in  the  fashion  which 
prevailed  at  the  time  he  left  his  native  province,  twenty 
years  before,  and  which  at  present  helped  to  set  off  with 
more  striking  effect  the  oddities  of  his  body  and  mind, 
he  was,  as  before,  an  object  of  peculiar  attraction  to  the 
mischievous  propensities  of  the  juvenility  of  his  neigh- 
borhood. One  of  them,  still  fresh  from  the  university, 
where  he  had  won  academical  honors,  availing  himself, 
in  order  to  display  the  powers  of  his  muse,  of  Cadillac's 
reappearance  at  home,  composed  a  ballad  which  he 
called  '•'"The  Return  of  the  Iroquois  Chief"  and  which 
was  a  parody  of  a  celebrated  one,  well  known  as  "The 
KnigkCs  Return  from  Palestine?  It  met  with  great 
success,  and  was  sung  more  than  once  under  the  Gothic 
windows  of  Cadillac's  tower.  But  he  listened  to  the 
sarcastic  composition  with  a  smile  of  ineffable  contempt. 
"  Let  them  laugh  at  my  past  misfortunes,"  he  would  say 
to  himself;  "the  future  will  avenge  my  wrongs,  and  my 
enemies  will  be  jaundiced  with  the  bile  of  envy.  I  am 
now  governor  of  Louisiana,  of  that  favored  land,  of 
which  so  many  wonders  are  related.  This  is  no  longer 
the  frozen  climate  of  Canada,  but  a  genial  region,  which, 
from  its  contiguity,  must  be  akin  to  that  of  Mexico, 
where  the  hot  rays  of  the  sun  make  the  earth  teem  with 
gold,  diamonds,  and  rubies !"  Working  himself  into  a 
paroxysm  of  frenzied  excitement,  he  struck  passionately, 
with  the  palm  of  his  hand,  the  wall  of  the  room  he  was 
pacing  to  and  fro,  and  exclaimed,  "O  venerable  pile, 
which  derision  calls  Cadillac's  Rookery,  I  will  yet  make 


CADILLAC'S  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  LOUISIANA.  125 

thee  a  tower  of  strength  and  glory !  I  will  gild  each  of 
thy  moss-coated  stones,  and  thou  shalt  be  a  tabernacle  for 
men  to  wonder  at  and  to  worship !"  As  he  spoke,  his 
eyes  became  suffused  with  tears,  and  there  was  so  much 
feeling  and  pathos  in  his  action,  and  in  the  expression 
of  his  aspirations,  that,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  not 
only  he  momentarily  ceased  to  be  ridiculous,  but,  to  one 
who  had  seen  him  then,  would  have  appeared  not  des- 
titute of  a  certain  degree  of  dignity,  and  perhaps  not 
unworthy  of  respectful  sympathy.  Such  is  the  magic 
of  deep  sentiment ! 

When  Cadillac  landed  on  the  bleak  shore  of  Dau- 
phine  or  Massacre  Island,  what  he  saw  was  very  far 
from  answering  his  expectations.  From  the  altitude  of 
flight  to  which  his  imagination  had  risen,  it  is  easy  to 
judge  of  the  rapidity  of  its  precipitate  descent.  The 
shock  received  from  its  sudden  fall,  was  such  as  to  pro- 
duce a  distraction  of  the  mind,  bordering  on  absolute 
madness.  As  soon  as  Cadillac  recovered  from  the  be- 
wildered state  of  astonishment  into  which  he  had  been 
thrown,  he  sent  to  the  minister  of  the  marine  depart- 
ment a  description  of  the  country,  of  which  I  shall  only 
give  this  short  abstract:  "The  wealth  of  Dauphine 
Island,"  said  he,  "  consists  of  a  score  of  fig-trees,  three 
wild  pear-trees,  and  three  apple-trees  of  the  same  na- 
ture, a  dwarfish  plum-tree,  three  feet  high,  with  seven 
bad-looking  plums,  thirty  plants  of  vine,  with  nine 
bunches  of  half-rotten  and  half-dried-up  grapes,  forty 
stands  of  French  melons,  and  some  pumpkins.  This  is 
the  terrestrial  paradise  of  which  we  had  heard  so  much ! 
Nothing  but  fables  and  lies !" 

It  will  be  recollected  that  Lamothe  Cadillac  had 
arrived  on  the  13th  of  May.  He  had  since  been  ex- 
ploring the  country,  and  with  his  usual  sagacity,  he 
passed  this  remarkable  judgment  on  Lower  Louisiana: 


126  CADILLAC'S  QUARRELS. 

"  This  is  a  very  wretched  country,  good  for  nothing, 
and  incapable  of  producing  either  tobacco,  wheat,  or 
vegetables,  even  as  high  as  Natchez."  It  is  fortunate 
that  from  this  oracular  decision  there  has  been  an  ap- 
peal, and  we  now  know  whether  it  has  been  confirmed 
or  annulled. 

The  1st  of  January,  1714,  had  come  in  due  time,  and 
Cadillac  had  not  allowed  his  unfavorable  opinions  of 
Louisiana  to  depart  with  the  expiring  year,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  dispatch  in  which  he  said :  "  The  inhab- 
itants are  no  better  than  the  country;  they  are  the 
very  scum  and  refuse  of  Canada,  ruffians,  who  have 
thus  far  cheated  the  gibbet  of  its  due,  vagabonds,  who 
are  without  subordination  to  the  laws,  without  any  re- 
spect for  religion  or  for  the  government,  graceless  prof- 
ligates, who  are  so  steeped  in  vice  that  they  prefer  the 
Indian  females  to  French  women !  How  can  I  find  a 
remedy  for  such  evils,  when  his  Majesty  instructs  me 
to  behave  with  extreme  lenity,  and  in  such  a  manner 
as  not  to  provoke  complaints  !  But  what  shall  I  say 
of  the  troops,  who  are  without  discipline,  and  scattered 
among  the  Indians,  at  whose  expense  they  subsist?" 
Cadillac  went  on  in  this  strain,  in  no  sparing  style,  and 
summed  up  the  whole  with  this  sweeping  declaration : 
"  The  colony  is  not  worth  a  straw  for  the  moment ;  but 
I  shall  endeavor  to  make  something  of  it,  if  God  grants 
me  health." 

God  granted  the  worthy  governor  as  robust  health  as 
he  could  have  wished,  but  without  enabling  him  to  re- 
deem his  word,  with  regard  to  bettering  the  condition 
of  the  colony;  and  at  the  expiration  of  the  year  1714, 
Cadillac  found  out  that  his  situation,  as  an  administrator, 
was  far  from  being  an  enviable  one.  He  had  quarreled 
with  Dirigoin,  one  of  Crozat's  agents,  because,  if  we  take 
his  representations  as  true,  that  agent  was  a  fool ;  and 


DISSENSIONS  IN  THE  COLONY.  127 

with  the  comptroller,  Lebas,  because  he,  Lebas,  was  dis- 
sipated ;  with  the  inhabitants,  because  they  were  dis- 
solute and  had  hitherto  refused  to  build  a  church, 
which  was  a  thing  not  yet  to  be  found  in  the  whole 
colony ;  with  the  soldiers,  because  they  were  without 
discipline ;  with  the  officers,  and  particularly  with  Bien- 
ville,  Boisbriant,  Chateaugue,  and  Serigny,  because  they 
neglected  to  apply  for  the  holy  sacrament,  even  at  Eas- 
ter ;  with  the  commissary,  Duclos,  because  the  views  of 
that  dignitary  had  differed  from  his  own  on  more  than 
one  occasion ;  with  Richebourg,  a  captain  of  dragoons, 
who  had  come  with  him  in  a  ship  of  the  line,  because 
that  officer  had  seduced  most  of  the  girls  who  had  em- 
barked with  them  for  Louisiana,  and  who  ought  to  have 
been  respected ;  with  the  girls  themselves,  because  they 
had  suffered  their  virtue  to  be  seduced,  which  was  the 
cause  of  their  remaining  on  his  hands,  inasmuch  as  every 
one  refused  to  marry  them  on  account  of  their  own  mis- 
conduct. Is  it  astonishing  that,  under  such  untoward 
circumstances,  Cadillac's  displeasure  at  his  situation 
should  have  swelled  into  such  gigantic  proportions  as  to 
induce  him  to  allow  his  gathering  indignation  to  em- 
brace the  whole  of  America  within  the  scope  of  his  ani- 
madversion ?  Is  it  not  to  be  supposed  that  his  under- 
standing must  have  been  a  little  confused  by  his  perplex- 
ities, when  he  wrote  to  the  ministry — "  Believe  me,  this 
whole  continent  is  not  worth  having,  and  our  colonists 
are  so  dissatisfied  that  they  are  all  disposed  to  run  away  ?" 
The  feud  between  the  magnates  of  the  land  grew 
every  day  more  fierce,  and  the  colony  presented  the 
aspect  of  two  hostile  camps,  Trojans  and  Greeks,  tug- 
ging in  irreconcilable  enmity.  On  one  side,  there  was 
the  governor  who  was  the  Agamemnon  of  his  party, 
and  who  was  backed  by  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  Bagot, 
Blondel,  Latour,  Villiers,  and  Terrine,  scions  of  noble 


128  DISSENSIONS  IN  THE  COLONY. 

houses,  and  all  of  them  young  and  brilliant  officers,  who 
would  have  joined  in  any  strife  merely  for  the  sake  of 
excitement.  The  fanatic  Curate  de  la  Vente  was  their 
Calchas,  and  stimulated  them  to  the  contest.  On  the 
other  side  stood  Lieutenant-Governor  Bienville,  the 
Hector  of  the  opposition,  with  the  king's  commissary 
Duclos,  Boisbriant,  Chateaugue,  Eichebourg,  Du  Tisne, 
Serigny,  and  others  of  some  note  or  influence,  who  were 
at  least  fully  a  match  for  their  antagonists.  Thus,  on 
this  small  theater,  the  human  passions  were  as  keenly 
at  work,  and  there  was  as  hot  a  struggle  for  petty 
power,  as  if  the  stage  for  their  display  had  been  a  more 
elevated  one,  and  the  objects  of  contention  more  excit- 
ing to  ambition. 

From  the  annals  of  the  Dutch  settlements  of  New 
York,  or  rather  from  the  overflowing  richness  of  his 
own  imagination,  which,  to  be  prolific,  had  only  to 
alight  on  and  to  be  connected  with  a  favorite  subject, 
Washington  Irving  drew  those  humorous  sketches, 
which  first  gave  celebrity  to  his  name.  But  in  the 
early  history  of  Louisiana,  which  has  nothing  to  bor- 
row from  the  fields  of  fiction,  there  spring  up  characters 
and  incidents,  fraught  with  as  much  originality,  and 
tinged  with  as  much  romance,  as  any  so  felicitously  de- 
scribed by  him  in  his  productions,  or  by  other  authors 
in  any  work  of  fancy.  What  writer  could  pretend,  in 
his  most  whimsical  creations,  to  produce  a  being  more 
fantastical  than  Lamothe  Cadillac  ?  What  powers  of 
invention  could  match  his  style  and  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed in  his  letters?  But  let  us  follow  the  erratic 
course  pursued  by  this  eccentric  personage. 

He  had  come  to  Louisiana  to  acquire  sudden  wealth 
by  the  discovery  of  mines,  and  not  to  superintend  and 
foster  the  slow  and  tedious  progress  of  civilization. 
Hence,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  that,  on  his  receiv- 


CADILLAC  NEGLECTS  ITS  INTERESTS.  129 

ing,  one  day,  positive  orders  to  assist  the  agents  of  Cro- 
zat  in  establishing  trading  settlements  or  posts  on  the 
Wabash  and  on  the  Illinois,  he  got  out  of  humor,  and 
in  a  fit  of  impatience,  had  the  hardihood  to  write  back 
to  the  ministry,  in  these  terms :  "  I  have  seen  Crozat's 
instructions  to  his  agents.  I  thought  they  issued  from 
a  lunatic  asylum,  and  there  appeared  to  me  to  be  no 
more  sense  in  them  than  in  the  Apocalypse.  What ! 
Is  it  expected  that,  for  any  commercial  or  profitable 
purposes,  boats  will  ever  be  able  to  run  up  the  Missis- 
sippi, into  the  Wabash,  the  Missouri,  or  the  Red  River  ? 
One  might  as  well  try  to  bite  a  slice  off  the  moon  !  Not 
only  are  these  rivers  as  rapid  as  the  Rhone,  but  in  their 
crooked  course,  they  imitate  to  perfection  a  snake's 
undulations.  Hence,  for  instance,  on  every  turn  of  the 
Mississippi,  it  would  be  necessary  to  wait  for  a  change 
of  wind,  if  wind  could  be  had,  because  this  river  is  so 
lined  up  with  thick  woods,  that  very  little  wind  has 
access  to  its  bed." 

As  to  the  ministerial  expectations  that  he  should 
devote  most  of  his  time  to  favoring  agricultural  pur- 
suits among  the  colonists,  Cadillac  took  it  in  high  dud- 
geon, that  such  recommendations  should  ever  be  ad- 
dressed to  him,  as  if  he  had  not  something  better  to 
attend  to — the  discovery  of  gold,  diamonds  and  pearls ! 
To  trouble  himself  about  conceding  and  locating  lands, 
was  a  thing  concerning  which  he  never  admitted  the 
possibility  of  his  being  seriously  employed,  and  he 
treated  the  matter  very  lightly  in  one  of  his  dispatches, 
in  which  he  said  to  the  ministry,  "  Give  the  colonists  as 
much  land  as  they  please.  Why  stint  the  measure? 
The  lands  are  so  bad  that  there  is  no  necessity  to  care 
for  the  number  of  acres.  A  copious  distribution  of 
them  would  be  cheap  liberality." 

Thus,  agriculture  and  commerce  had  failed  to  engage 


130  CADILLAC  ENDEAVORS  TO  DISCOVER  MINES. 

the  sympathies  of  Cadillac,  who,  since  the  first  day  he 
landed  in  Louisiana,  had  bent  all  his  energies  and  all 
the  means  at  his  command  toward  the  discovery  of 
mines.  He  had  sent  Canadians  in  every  direction  to 
explore  for  the  hidden  treasures  of  the  earth,  but 
months  had  elapsed  without  gratifying  the  cravings  of 
Cadillac's  appetite  for  gold.  Some  of  the  Canadians 
had  been  killed  by  the  Indians : — others  found  so  much 
amusement  in  their  favorite  avocations  of  fishing  and 
hunting,  that  they  forgot  the  duties  imposed  upon 
them,  and  for  the  discharge  of  which  they  were  paid : — 
there  were  more  than  one  who,  having  gone  so  far  as 
the  Illinois  and  the  Missouri,  suddenly  bethought  them- 
selves of  some  love-sick  maid,  some  doting  mother  or 
aged  father,  whom  they  had  left  pining  on  the  banks 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  instead  of  returning  down  the 
Mississippi,  to  give  to  Cadillac  an  account  of  their  mis- 
sion, they  pursued  their  way  up  to  their  native  villages. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  all  were  little  competent  and 
too  ignorant  to  investigate  properly  the  object  of  their 
inquiries.  The  few  who  came  back  had  but  "  a  beg- 
garly account  of  empty  boxes"  to  lay  before  Cadillac. 
But  if  he  had  been  favored  with  a  romantic  turn  of 
mind,  he  would  have  found  some  indemnification  in  the 
recital  of  their  marvelous  adventures. 

Cadillac  came  at  last  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was 
in  a  sorry  predicament.  Sancho,  when  assailed  with 
the  cares  of  his  insular  government,  never  felt  the  tenth 
part  of  his  embarrassment.  So  much  so,  that  Cadillac 
deeply  regretted  that  he  could  not  be  forever  asleep  ; 
because,  when  awake,  he  could  not  but  be  aware  that 
he  had  spent  all  the  funds  he  could  command,  and  had 
no  more  left  to  consecrate  to  his  favorite  scheme.  The 
sad  reality  stared  him  in  the  face : — his  purse  was 
empty,  and  his  Canadians  were  gone.  But  when  he 


EMBARRASSMENTS  OF  THE  GOVERNOR.        131 

was  asleep,  his  dreams  beggared  the  wonders  of  the 
Arabian  Nights.  Then  Queen  Mab  would  drive,  four 
in  hand,  her  tiny  cobweb  carriage  through  his  brain : 
some  merry  elf  of  her  court  would  tickle  his  nose  with 
a  feather  from  a  humming-bird's  tail,  and  instantly 
Cadillac  would  see  a  thousand  fairy  miners,  extracting 
from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  and  heaping  upon  its  sur- 
face enormous  piles  of  gold  and  silver,  having  a  fantas- 
tic resemblance  to  those  Indian  mounds  which,  in  our 
days,  make  such  strong  appeals  to  our  curiosity.  Heat- 
ed by  these  visions,  Cadillac  addressed  himself  to  Du- 
clos,  the  king's  commissary,  for  more  funds  to  prosecute 
his  researches  after  the  precious  metals  for  which  he 
thirsted.  Duclos  replied  that  the  treasury  had  been 
pumped  dry.  "  Borrow,"  answered  Cadillac.  "  I  can 
not,"  observed  Duclos.  "  Well,  then !"  said  the  gover- 
nor very  pithily,  "what  is  the  use  of  your  being  a 
financier,  if  you  can  not  raise  money  by  borrowing,  and 
what  is  the  use  of  my  being  a  governor,  if  I  have  no 
funds  to  carry  on  the  purposes  of  my  government !" 

Low  did  Cadillac  hang .  his  head,  in  spite  of  all  his 
pride,  when  he  found  himself  so  cramped  up  in  his 
operations.  But  it  would  require  a  more  powerful  pen 
than  mine  to  describe  his  indignation,  when  Duclos,  the 
king's  commissary,  requested  him  to  render  his  accounts 
for  all  the  funds  which  had  been  put  in  his  hands,  and 
for  all  the  goods  and  trinkets  which  had  been  delivered 
to  him  for  distribution  among  the  Indians.  It  was 
long  before  he  could  be  made  to  understand  what  was 
expected  from  him,  so  strange  and  unnatural  to  him  did 
such  a  pretension,  as  Cadillac  called  it,  really  seem  on 
the  part  of  the  commissary.  There  was  to  him  some* 
thing  stupendous  in  the  idea  that  there  should  ever  bo 
the  possibility  of  any  such  event  happening,  as  that  of 
a  commissary  calling  upon  him,  Cadillac,  the  noblest 


132  THE  GOVERNOR'S  TROUBLES  INCREASE. 

among  the  no"ble,  him,  the  governor,  him,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Lord's  anointed,  to  furnish  his  accounts, 
just  in  the  same  way  that  such  a  call  might  have  been 
made  upon  any  ordinary  biped  of  the  human  species. 
Was  not  such  a  pretension  the  forerunner  of  some  ex- 
traordinary convulsion  of  nature?  Be  it  as  it  may, 
Cadillac  immediately  wrote  to  the  ministry  to  inform 
them  of  this  astounding  fact,  which,  in  his  opinion,  was 
a  demonstration  of  the  wild  notions  that  had  crept  into 
the  colony.  Evidently,  the  commissary  was  "non 
compos  mentis!" 

The  tribulations  of  Cadillac  were  destined  to  pursue 
a  progressive  course,  and  he  was  hardly  out  of  one 
difficulty,  when  another  and  still  another  came  in  quick 
succession,  like  the  ghosts  that  haunted  Macbeth.  To 
increase  his  perplexities,  the  troops  refused  to  go 
through  all  the  duties  of  their  regular  service,  on  the 
ground  that  they  had  nothing  to  eat  but  corn,  when 
they  were  entitled  to  wheat  bread.  "  A  deputation  of 
twenty  of  them,"  said  Cadillac,  in  his  communications 
to  the  ministry,  "  had  the  impudence  to  address  me  on 
the  subject.  I  immediately  sent  the  spokesman  to 
prison,  and  having  convened  the  officers,  I  told  them 
that  the  troops  in  Canada  were  satisfied  with  corn  for 
their  food,  that  those  in  Louisiana  had,  as  I  had  been 
informed,  lived  on  it  three  years,  and  that  I  saw  no 
reason  why  they  should  not  continue.  None  of  the 
officers  dissented  from  me,  except  the  commissary,  who 
expressed  a  different  opinion,  which  he  supported  with 
the  most  puerile  reasoning :  but  I  chid  him  and  gave 
him  a  good  rapping  on  the  knuckles." 

The  spirit  of  discontent  was  not  confined  to  the 
soldiery,  but  had  spread  through  the  minds  of  the 
colonists  themselves.  "  They  have  dared  to  meet  with- 
out my  permission,"  said  he,  in  another  dispatch,  "  and 


HE  REFUSES  TO  EXPEL  LOOSE  WOMEN.  133 

to  frame  a  petition  to  demand  that  all  nations  should 
be  permitted  to  trade  freely  with  the  colony,  and  that 
the  inhabitants  should  have  the  right  to  move  out  of  this 
province,  according  to  their  pleasure.  Freedom  of 
trade,  and  freedom  of  action ! — a  pretty  thing !  What 
would  become  of  Crozat's  privileges?  The  colonists 
also  insist  on  Crozat's  monopoly  of  trade  being  confined 
to  the  wholesale  disposition  of  his  goods  and  merchan- 
dise. They  pretend  that  he  should  in  no  case  be  allowed 
to  retail  his  goods,  and  that  his  gains  should  be  limited 
to  fifty  per  cent,  on  the  original  cost.  Their  petition 
contains  several  other  demands  equally  absurd.  In 
order  to  cut  all  these  intrigues  in  the  bud,  I  declared 
that  if  this  petition  was  ever  presented  to  me,  I  would 
hang  the  bearer.  A  certain  fellow,  by  the  name  of 
Miragoin,  had  taken  charge  of  this  precious  piece  of 
composition,  and  had  assumed  the  responsibility  of  ita 
presentation,  but  on  his  being  informed  of  my  inten- 
tions, he  tore  it  to  pieces." 

One  would  have  thought  that  Cadillac  had  supped 
full  of  annoyances,  if  not  of  horrors.  But  another 
cause  of  deep  mortification,  particularly  for  one  so 
pious  and  so  strictly  moral  as  he  was,  had  been  kept  in 
reserve ;  which  was,  his  finding  himself  under  the  ne- 
cessity of  resisting  the  solicitations  of  his  friend,  the 
Curate  de  la  Vente,  and  of  the  other  missionaries,  who 
insisted  upon  his  expelling  out  of  the  colony,  two  wo- 
men of  bad  character,  that  had  lately  arrived.  "  I 
have  refused  to  do  so,"  said  he,  in  one  of  his  dispatches, 
"  because  if  I  sent  away  all  women  of  loose  habits, 
there  would  be  no  females  left,  and  this  would  not  meet 
the  views  of  the  government.  Besides  (he  slyly  ob- 
served), one  of  these  girls  occupies  the  position  of  a 
servant  in  the  household  of  the  king's  commissary,  who 
will  no  doubt  reclaim  her  from  her  vicious  propensities. 


134:  CADILLAC'S  DAUGHTER 

After  all,  I  think  that  the  members  of  the  clergy  here 
are  perhaps  too  rigid,  and  too  fond  of  exacting  long 
and  repeated  confessions.  A  little  more  lenity  would 
better  suit  the  place  and  time.  Let  me  add,  in  conclu- 
sion, that  if  you  do  not  check  the  intrigues  of  Bienville 
and  of  the  commissary,  who  have  gained  over  to  their 
side  most  of  the  officers  and  of  the  inhabitants,  Crozat 
will  soon  be  obliged  to  abandon  his  enterprise." 

We  see  that  there  was  a  deep  feeling  of  animosity 
between  Cadillac  and  Bienville,  which  threatened  to  be 
of  long  continuance.  But  Cadillac  had  a  daughter, 
and  Bienville  was  a  young  man,  and  one  of  such  as  are 
framed  by  nature  to  win  the  affections  of  the  fair  de- 
scendants of  Mother  Eve.  Would  not  a  novel-writer 
imagine,  under  such  circumstances,  a  love  story,  either 
to  soothe  the  two  chiefs  into  a  reconciliation,  or  to  fan 
into  more  sparkling  flames  the  slow  burning  fire  of 
their  inextinguishable  hatred  ?  Is  it  not  strange  that 
what  would  certainly  be  devised  to  increase  the  inter- 
est of  the  dramatic  plot,  did  actually  turn  out  to  be  an 
historical  occurrence?  But  what  fact  or  transaction, 
commonplace  as  it  would  appear  anywhere  else  accord- 
ing to  the  ordinary  run  of  things,  does  not,  when  con- 
nected with  Louisiana,  assume  a  romantic  form  and 
shape  ? 

Thus  Cadillac's  daughter  did  really  fall  in  love  with 
Bienville.  But  although  her  eyes  spoke  plainly  the 
sentiment  of  her  heart,  Bienville  did  not  seem  to  be 
conscious  of  his  good  fortune,  and  kept  himself  wrapped 
up  in  respectful  blindness.  The  lady's  love,  however, 
made  itself  so  apparent,  that  it  at  last  flashed  upon 
Cadillac's  mind.  This  was  indeed  a  discovery !  How 
he  did  wince  at  the  idea  that  one  whom  he  looked 
upon  as  so  inferior  to  himself  in  birth  and  rank,  and 
particularly  that  a  Canadian  should  have  won  the 


FALLS  IN  LOVE  WITH  BIENVILLE.  135 

heart  of  his  daughter !  Vehemently  and  long  did  he 
remonstrate  with  his  progeny  on  the  unnatural  passion 
which  she  had  conceived ;  but  the  love-sick  maid 
thought  it  perfectly  natural,  and  showed  a  pertinacity 
which  greatly  shocked  her  equally  obstinate  parent. 
Nay,  she  did  what  others  had  done  before  her,  and  be- 
came so  pale  and  emaciated  that  she  frightened  her  fa- 
ther's opposition  into  an  acquiescence  with  her  wishes. 
So  much  so,  that  Cadillac  brought  himself,  at  last,  to 
think  that  this  match  would  not  be  so  disproportionate 
as  he  had  conceived  it  at  first.  Bienville,  after  all,  was 
a  gentleman  by  birth,  he  was  the  founder  of  a  colony, 
and  had  been  a  governor! — That  was  something  to 
begin  with,  and  he  might,  in  the  course  of  time,  rise  to 
an  eminence  which  would  show  him  worthy  of  an  alli- 
ance with  the  illustrious  Cadillac  family.  Besides,  Ca- 
dillac was  getting  old,  and  had  so  far  had  a  poor  chance 
of  acquiring  the  wealth  he  had  been  in  quest  of  so 
long.  If  he  died,  what  would  become  of  his  daughter  ? 
These  reflections  settled  the  question,  and  Cadillac  said 
to  himself,  "  Bienville  shall  be  my  son-in-law."  Never 
did  he,  for  one  single  moment,  dream  of  any  obstacle. 
Nothing  remained  but  to  encourage  Bienville's  fancied 
timidity,  and  to  lift  up  the  curtain  which  concealed  from, 
him  the  bliss  awaiting  his  unconscious  innocence. 

One  morning,  Bienville,  much  to  his  astonishment, 
received  a  friendly  invitation  to  the  governor's  closet. 
There,  the  great  man  proffered  to  his  subordinate  the 
olive  branch  of  reconciliation,  and  by  slow  degrees, 
gave  him  to  understand  that  the  god  Hymen  might 
seal  the  bond  of  their  amity.  Bienville  received  this 
communication  with  low  and  reverential  obeisance. 
Much  delighted  did  he  show  himself  at  this  offer  of 
reconciliation,  and  much  honored  with  the  prospect, 
however  distant,  of  an  alliance  so  far  beyond  his  hum- 


136  BIENVILLE  DECLINES  MARRYING  HER. 

ble  aspirations ;  tint,  at  the  same  time,  lie  plainly  inti- 
mated to  Cadillac  his  firm  determination,  for  reasons 
best  known  to  himself,  forever  to  undergo  the  mortifi- 
cations of  celibacy !  So  unexpected  this  answer  was, 
that  Cadillac  reeled  in  his  seat,  as  if  he  had  been 
stunned  by  a  sudden  blow.  There  he  stood  in  a 
trance,  with  his  mouth  gaping  wide,  with  his  eyes 
starting  from  their  sockets,  and  with  dilating  nostrils, 
while  Bienville  and  the  very  walls,  and  every  thing 
that  was  in  the  room,  seemed  to  spin  and  whirl  madly 
around  him  with  electric  rapidity.  Now,  indeed,  he 
had  known  the  worst,  fate  had  entered  the  lists,  and 
Jlirnam  wood  had  come  to  Dunsinam !  What !  his 
daughter,  a  Cadillac,  to  be  refused  by  a  Canadian  ad- 
venturer !  No  doubt  a  screw  had  broken  loose  in  the 
machinery  of  the  universe,  and  our  whole  world  was 
to  be  flung  back  into  the  womb  of  old  chaos  again ! 
Before  Cadillac  had  recovered  from  this  paroxysm, 
Bienville  had  made  his  exit,  and  had  gone  to  tell  the 
anecdote  to  some  confidential  friends.  The  fact  which 
I  have  related  is  thus  briefly  mentioned  by  Bienville 
in  one  of  his  dispatches :  "  I  can  assure  your  excellency 
that  the  cause  of  Cadillac's  enmity  to  me  is  my  having 
refused  to  marry  his  daughter." 

Bienville  did  not  wait  long  to  receive  a  signal  proof 
of  Cadillac's  vindictive  spirit,  and  he  anticipated  a  man- 
ifestation of  it,  when  summoned  a  second  time  to  ap- 
pear before  his  chief.  Nor  was  he  deceived ;  and  when 
he  was  ushered  into  Cadillac's  presence,  that  dignitary's 
countenance,  which  looked  more  than  usually  solemn 
and  stern,  indicated  that  he  had  matured  his  revenge 
for  the  insult  he  had  undergone.  "Sir,"  said  he  to 
Bienville,  "  I  have  received  secret  information  that  four 
Canadians,  on  their  way  to  Illinois,  have  been  massa- 
cred by  the  Natchez.  You  must  punish  the  murderers, 


BIENVILLE  ORDERED  TO  PUNISH  THE  NATCHEZ.         137 

and  build  a  fort  on  the  territory  of  that  perfidious  na- 
tion, to  keep  it  in  check.  Take  Bichebourg's  company 
of  thirty-four  men,  fifteen  sailors  to  man  your  boats,  and 
proceed  to  execute  my  commands."  "  What !"  exclaimed 
Bienville,  "  do  you  really  intend  to  send  me  with  thirty- 
four  men  to  encounter  a  hostile  tribe  that  numbers  eight 
hundred  warriors  !"  "  A  truce  to  your  observations," 
continued  Cadillac,  with  a  bitter  smile,  "  to  hear  must 
be  to  obey.  I  can  not  dispose,  of  a  greater  force.  I 
have  myself  good  grounds  to  expect  being  attacked  by 
the  neighboring  nations,  who,  as  I  am  informed,  have 
entered  into  a  conspiracy  against  us.  Yet  the  offense 
committed  by  the  Natchez  must  be  instantly  requited, 
or  they  would  be  emboldened  into  the  perpetration  of 
worse  outrages.  Go  then,  with  such  means  as  I  can 
give ;  in  case  of  success,  your  merit  will  be  greater,  but 
if  you  should  meet  with  any  reverse,  you  will  be  at  no 
loss  for  an  excuse,  and  all  the  responsibility  shall  be 
mine.  Besides,  you  and  Bichebourg  have  such  talents 
and  courage  as  will  easily  extricate  you  out  of  any  dif- 
ficulty. You  are  a  very  Hercules,  and  he  is  a  perfect 
Theseus,  in  licentious  propensities,  at  least.  What  is 
this  mission  I  send  you  upon,  compared  with  the  twelve 
labors  of  the  mythological  hero,  who,  like  you  on  this 
occasion,  was  sent  forth  to  redress  wrongs  and  punish 
crimes !"  To  the  studied  sarcasm  of  this  set  speech, 
Bienville  made  no  answer.  In  those  days  of  adventur- 
ous and  almost  mad  exploits  in  America,  in  an  age  when 
the  disciplinarian  rules  of  hierarchy  commanded  such 
respect  and  obedience,  none,  without  disgrace,  could 
have  questioned  the  word  of  his  superior,  when  that 
word  was  to  brave  danger,  however  foolish  and  reck- 
less this  exercise  of  authority  might  be.  Moreover, 
Bienville  saw  that  his  ruin  had  been  deliberately  plan- 
ned, and  that  remonstrance  was  useless.  Therefore, 


133  CHARACTER  OF  RICHEBOURG. 

signifying  mute  assent  to  Cadillac's  wishes,  he  withdrew 
to  betake  himself  to  the  execution  of  the  orders  which 
he  had  received,  and  to  advise  with  Richebourg  on  the 
best  means  of  defeating  Cadillac's  malicious  designs. 

Richebourg  was  a  brave  officer,  full  of  intelligence 
and  of  cool  daring,  whose  career  in  Europe,  as  a  mili- 
tary man,  had  been  interrupted  by  several  duels,  which 
at  last  had  forced  him  to  leave  his  country.  He  was 
so  amiable,  so  obliging,  so  exceedingly  conciliatory, 
that  it  was  difficult  for  one  who  did  not  know  a  certain 
eccentric  peculiarity  of  his  mind,  to  understand  how  he 
had  come  to  have  so  many  quarrels.  Who  more  gifted 
than  he  with  suavity  of  manners  and  the  art  of  pleas- 
ing ?  He  never  was  fretted  by  contradiction,  and  ever 
smiled  at  opposition.  Popular  among  men,  a  favorite 
with  women,  he  never  allowed  words  of  blame  to  fall 
from  his  lips,  but  on  the  contrary  was  remarkable  for 
the  good  nature  of  his  remarks  on  all  occasions  except 
one.  How  could  this  milk  of  human  kindness,  which 
was  the  dominant  element  of  his  disposition,  be  sud- 
denly soured  into  offensive  acidity,  or  turned  into  gall  ? 
It  was  passing  strange  !  But  it  was  nevertheless  true, 
that,  for  some  cause  which  he  never  explained,  he  had 
conceived  the  most  inveterate  hatred  for  all  that 
smacked  of  philanthropy.  There  suddenly  sprung  up 
in  his  heart  a  sort  of  diseased  aversion  for  the  man, 
who,  in  his  presence,  either  went  by  the  name  of  phi- 
lanthropist, or  expressed  sentiments  which  gave  him  a 
claim  to  that  character.  Richebourg,  on  such  occasions, 
would  listen  with  exemplary  composure,  and,  treasuring 
up  in  his  memory  every  philanthropic  declaration  that 
fell  from  the  lips  of  the  speaker,  he  would,  as  soon  as 
he  found  the  opportunity,  put  him  to  the  test,  as  to 
whether  his  practice  corresponded  with  his  theory. 
Alas !  few  stood  the  test,  and  then  Richebourg  was  not 


CHARACTER  OF  RICHEBOTJRG.  139 

sparing  of  the  words,  humbug,  impostor,  and  hypocrite. 
"What  was  the  consequence  ?  A  quarrel ;  and  invaria- 
bly the  philanthropist  was  run  through.  On  this  in- 
explicable whim,  on  this  Quixotic  tilting  with  all  pre- 
tenders to  philanthropy,  Richebourg's  friends  frequently 
remonstrated,  but  found  him  intractable.  No  answer 
would  he  give  to  their  observations,  but  he  kept  stead- 
ily on  the  same  course  of  action.  At  last  it  became 
evident  to  them,  that  it  was  an  incurable  mania,  a 
crotchet  which  had  got  into  his  brain  and  was  incapa- 
ble of  eradication.  With  this  imperfection  they  put 
up  with  good  humor,  on  account  of  his  many  noble 
qualities,  and  he  became  generally  known  and  desig- 
nated as  the  philanthropist  hater.  His  companions  in 
arms,  who  loved  him — although  with  some  of  them  he 
had  actually  fought, because,  either  in  earnest  or  in  jest, 
they  had  hoisted  the  red  flag  that  was  sure  to  rouse  the 
bull — had,  in  a  joking  manner,  convened  one  day  all 
the  officers  and  inhabitants  of  Mobile  and  Massacre 
Island,  and  had  passed,  with  mock  gravity,  a  resolution, 
which  was,  however,  seriously  adhered  to,  and  in  which 
they  declared  that,  for  the  future,  no  one  would  allow 
himself,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  be  a  philanthro- 
pist within  a  radius  of  three  miles  of  Richebourg.  This 
secured  peace ;  but  woe  to  the  imprudent  or  uninformed 
stranger  who  trespassed  on  that  sacred  ground,  with  the 
slightest  visible  sign  of  the  heresy  which  the  fanatic 
Richebourg  held  in  utter  abomination ! 

Such  was  the  officer  who  was  to  share  with  Bienville 
the  dangers  of  the  expedition,  which  was  subsequently 
known  in  the  annals  of  Louisiana,  as  the  first  Natchez 
war. 

On  the  24th  of  April,  IT  16,  Bienville,  with  the  small 
force  which  had  been  allotted  to  him,  encamped  on  an 
island,  situated  in  the  Mississippi,  opposite  the  village 


14:0  BIENVILLE'S  INTERVIEW 

of  the  Tunicas,  at  the  distance  of  about  eighteen  leagues 
from  the  Natchez.  He  immediately  sent  a  Tunica  to 
convey  to  the  Natchez  the  intelligence  that  he  was 
coming  to  establish  a  factory  among  them,  to  trade  in 
furs,  and  to  supply  them,  in  exchange,  with  all  the  Eu- 
ropean merchandise  they  might  want.  Bienville  had 
been  informed  that  the  Natchez  believed  that  the  late 
murders  they  had  committed  on  the  persons  of  some 
French  traders  had  not  been  discovered,  and  he  re- 
solved to  avail  himself  of  this  circumstance  to  accom- 
plish his  purposes  without  the  risk  of  a  collision.  He 
affected,  therefore,  to  have  come  on  the  most  friendly 
errand,  and  gave  out  that  he  had  encamped  on  the 
island  merely  to  afford  rest  to  his  men,  and  to  minister 
to  the  wants  of  some  that  were  sick.  He  nevertheless 
took  the  precaution  to  have  an  intrenchment  made  with 
stakes  or  posts,  within  which  he  erected  three  log- 
houses.  One  he  intended  as  a  store-house  for  his  pro- 
visions and  ammunition,  the  other  as  a  guard-house,  and 
the  third  for  a  prison. 

On  the  27th,  three  Natchez  came,  under  the  osten- 
sible purpose  of  complimenting  Bienville  on  the  part 
of  their  tribe,  but  in  reality  to  act  as  spies,  and  they 
tendered  to  him  the  calumet,  that  mystic  pipe  which 
the  Indians  use  for  fumigation,  as  the  ensign  of  peace. 
Bienville  refused  to  smoke  with  them,  and  pretended 
to  consider  himself  as  not  treated  with  the  respect  to 
which  he  was  entitled,  because  their  chiefs  had  not 
come  in  person,  to  greet  him,  the  chief  of  the  French. 
"  I  see,"  said  he,  "  that  your  people  are  not  pleased  with 
the  idea  of  my  forming  a  settlement  on  their  territory, 
for  trading  with  them.  Otherwise  they  would  have 
expressed  their  satisfaction  in  a  more  becoming  man- 
ner. Be  it  so.  If  the  Natchez  are  so  thankless  for 
what  I  meant  to  be  a  favor,  I  will  alter  my  determina- 


WITH  THE  NATCHEZ  EMISSARIES.  HI 

tion,  and  give  the  preference  to  the  Tunicas,  who  have 
always  shown  themselves  such  great  friends  to  the 
French." 

After  this  speech,  Bienville  ordered  the  three  envoys 
to  be  well  feasted  and  treated  with  kindness.  The  next 
day,  they  returned  to  their  villages,  with  a  Frenchman 
sent  by  Bienville,  and  whose  mission  was  to  address  a 
formal  invitation  to  the  Natchez  chiefs  to  a  conference 
on  the  Tunicas  Island.  On  this  occasion,  the  Natchez 
felt  greatly  embarrassed,  and  many  consultations  were 
had  on  the  best  course  to  be  pursued.  Some  were  of 
opinion,  that  it  would  be  imprudent  for  their  chiefs  to 
put  themselves  in  the  power  of  the  French,  who  might 
have  received  information  of  what  had  lately  occurred, 
and  who  might  have  come,  under  the  garb  of  peace,  to 
entrap  their  great  men  and  wreak  vengeance  upon 
them.  Others  maintained  that,  from  the  circumstance 
of  the  French  having  come  in  such  small  number,  it 
was  evident  that  they  were  ignorant  of  the  death  of 
their  countrymen,  and  did  not  intend  to  act  as  foes. 
"  This  inference,"  they  said,  "  was  confirmed  by  the  in- 
formation which  had  been  carefully  collected  by  their 
spies.  They  had  no  pretext  to  treat  the  French  with 
indignity,  and  therefore  it  was  proper  for  the  chiefs  of 
their  tribe  to  go  to  meet  and  escort  to  their  villages 
the  wise  and  valiant  pale-faced  chief,  who  had  already 
visited  them  on  preceding  occasions.  A  different  course 
might  excite  suspicion,  and  investigation  might  lead  to 
the  discovery  of  what  it  was  desirable  to  conceal.  At 
any  rate,  the  chiefs,  by  refusing  to  accept  Bienville's  in- 
vitation, would  certainly  incur  his  displeasure,  and  he 
might,  by  forming  a  trading  establishment  at  the  Tuni- 
cas, enrich  that  rival  nation,  to  the  detriment  of  the 
Natchez."  These  arguments  prevailed,  and  in  an  evil 


142         THE  CHIEFS  OF  THE  NATCHEZ  VISIT  BIENVILLE. 

hour  for  the  Indian  chiefs,  their  visit  to  Bienville's 
camp  was  resolved  on. 

On  the  very  day  Bienville  had  dismissed  the  three 
Indian  envoys,  he  had  dispatched  one  of  his  most  skill- 
ful Canadian  boatmen,  to  ascend  the  river  with  the 
utmost  secrecy,  during  the  night,  and  proceeding  to  a 
certain  distance  beyond  and  above  the  villages  of  the 
Natchez,  to  give  notice  to  the  French  who  might  be 
coming  down  the  river  of  the  danger  that  threatened 
them  from  the  Natchez.  That  man  was  provided  with 
a  score  of  parchment  rolls,  which  he  was  to  append  to 
trees  in  places  where  they  were  likely  to  meet  the  eyes 
of  those  descending  the  Mississippi,  and  which  bore  this 
inscription :  "  The  Natchez  have  declared  war  against 
the  French,  and  M.  de  Bienville  is  encamped  at  the 
Tunicas." 

On  the  8th  of  May,  at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the 
Indian  chiefs  were  seen  coming  with  great  state  in 
four  pirogues.  The  chiefs  were  seated  under  parasols, 
and  were  accompanied  by  twelve  men,  swimming.  At 
this  sight,  Bienville  ordered  half  of  his  men  to  keep 
themselves  well  armed  and  concealed  in  the  guard- 
house, but  ready  for  sudden  action.  The  other  half  he 
instructed  to  appear  without  any  weapons,  to  assist  the 
Indians  in  landing,  and  to  take  charge  of  all  their  war 
apparel,  as  it  were  to  relieve  them  from  an  encum- 
brance, and  under  the  pretext  that  it  would  be  im- 
proper to  go  in  such  a  guise  to  the  awaiting  feast  and 
carousal.  He  further  commanded  that  eight  of  the 
principal  chiefs,  whom  he.  named,  should  be  introduced 
into  his  tent,  and  the  rest  be  kept  outside  until  his 
pleasure  was  made  known.  All  this  was  carried  into  ex- 
ecution without  the  slightest  difficulty.  Tho  chiefs  en- 
tered the  tent,  singing  and  dancing,  and  presented  the 
calumet  to  Bienville.  But  he  waved  it  off  with  con- 


BIENVILLE  ARRESTS  THEM.  143 

tempt,  and  sternly  told  them  that,  before  drawing  one 
whiff  from  the  smoking  pipe,  he  desired  to  know  what 
they  had  to  say,  and  that  he  was  willing  to  listen  to 
their  harangue.  At  this  unexpected  treatment,  the 
chiefs  were  highly  disconcerted :  they  went  out  of  the 
tent  in  dismay,  and  seemed,  with  great  ceremony,  to  be 
offering  their  calumet  to  the  sun.  Their  great  priest, 
with  extended  arms,  made  a  solemn  appeal  to  their 
god,  supplicating  him  to  pour  his  rays  into  the  heart  of 
the  pale-faced  chief,  to  dispel  the  clouds  which  had 
there  accumulated,  and  had  prevented  Bienville  from 
seeing  his  way  and  doing  justice  to  the  feelings  of  his 
red  friends.  After  all  this  religious  display,  they  re- 
turned to  the  tent,  and  again  tendered  their  calumet  to 
Bienville,  who,  tired  of  all  these  proceedings,  thought 
proper  at  once  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns  and  to 
come  out  with  his  charges.  "Before  I  receive  your 
token  of  amity,"  said  he  abruptly,  "and  pledge  my 
faith  in  return,  tell  me  what  satisfaction  you  offer  for 
the  death  of  the  Frenchmen  you  have  murdered." 
The  Indians,  who  had  really  thought  that  Bienville 
knew  nothing  of  that  crime,  appeared  to  be  struck 
aghast  by  this  direct  and  sudden  apostrophe:  they 
hung  down  their  heads  and  answered  not.  "  Let  them 
be  carried  to  the  prison  prepared  for  them,"  exclaimed 
Bienville  impatiently,  "  and  let  them  be  secured  with 
chains,  stocks,  and  fetters." 

On  this  demonstration  of  hostility,  out  came  the  In- 
dians with  their  death-songs,  which,  much  to  the  annoy- 
ance of  the  French,  they  kept  repeating  the  whole 
day :— they  refused  all  food,  and  appeared  determined 
to  meet  their  expected  doom  with  the  dauntless  energy 
so  common  in  that  race  of  men.  Toward  evening, 
Bienville  sent  for  the  great  chief,  called  "The  Great 
Sun,"  and  for  two  of  his  brothers,  whose  names  were, 


144  SPEECH  OF  BIENVILLE 

"The  Stung  Serpent"  and  "The  Little  Sun."  They 
were  the  three  most  influential  rulers  of  the  nation. 
Bienville  thus  addressed  them:  "I  know  that  it  was 
not  by  your  order,  or  with  your  consent,  that  the 
French  whose  death  I  come  to  avenge  have  been  mur- 
dered. Therefore,  your  lives  are  safe,  but  I  want  the 
heads  of  the  murderers,  and  of  the  chiefs  who  ordered 
or  sanctioned  the  deed.  I  will  not  be  satisfied  with 
their  scalps : — I  wish  for  the  very  heads,  in  order  that 
I  may  be  sure  that  deceit  has  not  been  practiced.  This 
whole  night  I  give  you  for  consultation  on  the  best 
mode  of  affording  me  satisfaction.  If  you  refuse,  woe 
to  your  tribe !  You  know  the  influence  which  I  have 
over  all  the  Indian  nations  of  this  country.  They  re- 
spect, love  and  trust  me,  because  from  the  day,  seven- 
teen summers  ago,  when  I  appeared  among  them,  to 
the  present  hour,  I  have  always  been  just  and  upright. 
You  know  that  if  I  raise  my  little  finger  against  you, 
and  give  one  single  war-whoop,  the  father  of  rivers  will 
hear,  and  will  carry  it,  up  and  down  stream,  to  all  his 
tributaries.  The  woods  themselves  will  prick  up  their 
leafy  ears,  from  the  big  salt  lake,  south,  to  the  fresh 
water  lakes  at  the  north,  and  raising  their  mighty  voice 
as  when  struggling  with  the  hurricane,  they  will  sum- 
mon from  the  four  quarters  of  the  horizon  the  children 
of  the  forests,  who  will  crush  you  with  their  united  and 
overwhelming  powers. 

"  You  know  that  I  do  not  boast,  and  that  those  red 
allies  will  gladly  march  against  you,  and  destroy  the 
eight  beautiful  villages  of  which  you  are  so  proud, 
without  my  risking  the  life  of  one  single  Frenchman. 
Do  you  not  remember  that,  in  1*704,  the  Tchioumaqui 
killed  a  missionary  and  three  other  Frenchmen  ?  They 
refused  to  deliver  the  murderers  to  me — my  wrath  was 
kindled,  and  I  said  to  the  neighboring  Indian  nations : 


TO  THE  CHIEFS.  145 

'  Bienville  hates  the  Tchioumaquis,  and  lie  who  kills  a 
Tchioumaqui  is  Bienville's  friend.'  When  I  passed  this 
sentence  upon  them,  you  know  that  their  tribe  was 
composed  of  three  hundred  families.  A  few  months 
elapsed,  and  they  were  reduced  to  eighty !  they  sued 
for  peace  at  last,  yielded  to  my  demands,  and  it  was 
only  then  that  the  tomahawk,  the  arrow  and  the  rifle 
ceased  to  drink  their  blood.  Justice  was  satisfied : — 
and  has  Bienville's  justice  a  smaller  foot  and  a  slower 
gait  when  it  stalks  abroad  in  the  pursuit  of  the  white 
man  who  has  wronged  the  red  man?  •  No!  In  1702, 
two  Pascagoulas  were  killed  by  a  Frenchman.  Blood 
for  blood,  I  said,  and  the  guilty  one,  although  he  was 
one  of  my  people,  no  longer  lived.  Thus,  what  I  have 
exacted  from  the  Indians,  I  have  rendered  unto  them. 
Thus  have  I  behaved,  and  thus  have  I  deserved  the 
reputation  which  I  enjoy  in  the  wigwams  of  the  red 
men,  because  I  never  deviated  from  the  straight  path 
of  honesty.  Hence  I  am  called  by  them  the  arrow  of 
wprigliliiess  and  the  tomahawk  of  justice. 

"  Measure  for  measure  ! — this  is  my  rule.  When 
the  Indians  have  invoked  my  arbitration  between 
themselves,  they  have  been  invariably  subject  to  this 
same  rule.  Thus,  in  1703,  two  Taouachas  having  killed 
a  Chickasaw,  I  obliged  their  chiefs  to  put  them  to  death. 
Blood  will  Juive  blood.  When  the  Choctaws  murdered 
two  Chactioumans  in  1715,  I  said,  tooth  for  tootli,  lives 
for  lives,  and  the  satisfaction  was  granted.  In  1707, 
the  Mobilians,  by  my  order,  carried  to  the  Taouachas, 
the  head  of  one  of  their  tribe  in  expiation  of  an  offense 
of  a  similar  nature  ;  and,  in  1709,  the  Pascagoulas  hav- 
ing assassinated  a  Mobilian,  '  an  eye  for  an  eye]  was  my 
award,  and  he  who  was  found  guilty  forfeited  his  life. 
The  Indians  have  always  recognized  the  equity  of  this 
law,  and  have  complied  with  it,  not  only  between  them- 


146  THE  CHIEFS  AGREE  TO 

selves,  but  between  them  and  the  French.  In  1703,  the 
Coiras  made  no  difficulty  to  put  to  death  four  of  their 
warriors,  who  had  murdered  a  missionary  and  two 
other  Frenchmen.  I  could  quote  many  other  instances, 
— but  the  cause  of  truth  does  not  require  long  speeches, 
and  few  words  will  convince  an  honest  heart.  I  have 
done.  I  do  not  believe  that  you  will  refuse  to  abide 
by  the  law  and  custom  which  has  always  existed  among 
the  Indians,  and  between  them  and  the  French.  There 
would  be  iniquity  and  danger  in  the  breach  of  that  law : 
honor,  justice,  peace  and  safety  lie  in  its  observance. 
Your  white  brother  waits  for  an  answer." 

The  Indians  listened  to  this  speech  with  profound 
attention,  but  made  no  reply,  and  Bienville  ordered 
them  to  be  remanded  to  prison.  The  next  morning, 
at  daybreak,  they  requested  to  speak  to  Bienville,  and 
they  were  conducted  to  his  presence.  The  Indian  who 
was  the  first  of  the  chiefs  by  rank,  addressed  him  in 
these  terms :  "  The  voice  of  the  Great  Spirit  made  it- 
self heard  within  us  last  night.  We  have  listened  to 
his  dictate,  and  we  come  to  give  our  white  brother 
whatever  satisfaction  he  desires.  But  we  wish  him  to 
observe  that  we,  the  great  chiefs,  being  all  prisoners, 
there  is  no  man  left  behind  who  has  the  power  to  ac- 
complish the  mission  of  bringing  the  heads  thou  de- 
mandest.  Let,  therefore,  the  Stung  Serpent  be  libe- 
rated, and  thy  will  shall  be  done."  To  this  request 
Bienville  refused  his  assent,  because  he  knew  the  energy 
of  that  chief,  and  doubted  his  intentions ;  but  he  con- 
sented that  Little  Sun  should  go  in  .his  brother's  place. 

Five  days  had  elapsed,  when  Little  Sun  returned, 
and  brought  three  heads.  After  a  careful  examination 
of  their  features,  Bienville  sent  again  for  all  the  chiefs, 
and  ordering  one  of  the  heads  to  be  flung  at  their  feet ; 
"  The  eye  of  the  white  chief,"  said  he, "  sees  clear  through 


PUNISH  THE  MURDERERS.  147 

the  fog  of  your  duplicity,  and  his  heart  is  full  of  sorrow 
at  your  conduct.  This  is  not  the  head  of  the  guilty, 
but  of  the  innocent  who  has  died  for  the  guilty.  This 
is  not  the  head  of  Oyelape,  him  whom  ye  call  the  Chief 
of  the  White  Clay?  "True,"  answered  the  Indians, 
"  we  do  not  deny  thy  word,  but  Oyelape  has  fled,  and 
his  brother  was  killed  in  his  place."  "  Even  if  it  be  so," 
observed  Bienville,  "this  substitution  can  not  be  ac- 
cepted." 

The  next  day,  the  15th  of  May,  Bienville  allowed  two 
other  chiefs  and  the  great  priest  to  depart  for  their  vil- 
lages, and  try  if  they  would  not  be  more  successful  than 
the  Little  Sun.  They  returned  on  the  25th,  and  in- 
formed Bienville  that  they  could  not  discover  the  place 
of  Oyelape's  concealment,  but  they  brought  along  with 
them  some  slaves  and  part  of  the  goods  which  had  be- 
longed to  the  murdered  Frenchmen.  In  the  mean  time, 
twenty-two  Frenchmen  and  Canadians  who  were  coming 
down  the  river  in  separate  detachments,  having  seen  the 
parchment  signs  posted  up  along  its  banks  by  the  order 
of  Bienville,  had  given  a  wide  berth  to  the  side  occu- 
pied by  the  Natchez,  and,  using  proper  precaution,  had 
arrived  safely  at  Bienville's  camp.  Thus  he  found  him- 
self at  the  head  of  seventy-one  men,  well  armed,  of  tried 
hardihood,  and  used  to  Indian  warfare.  This  was  a  for- 
tunate accession  to  his  forces;  for  the  Indians  had  al- 
most determined  to  make,  in  their  canoes,  a  night  attack 
upon  the  island,  and  to  rescue  their  chiefs  or  perish. 
The  Tunicas  had  given  to  Bienville  notice  of  what  was 
brewing  among  the  Natchez,  and  offered  forty  of  their 
best  warriors  to  assist  the  French  in  the  defense  of  the 
island.  But  Bienville,  who,  although  he  affected  to  put 
great  trust  in  them,  feared  that  they  might  prove  trai- 
tors, refused  with  apparent  thankfulness  their  proffered 
assistance,  and  replied  that,  with  his  small  force,  he 


148     THE  MURDERERS  ARE  SURRENDERED  TO  BIENVILLE. 

could  make  the  island  good  against  the  whole  tribe  of 
the  Natchez.  This  manifestation  of  confidence  in  his 
strength,  and  the  timely  arrival  of  the  twenty-two  white 
men,  with  some  Illinois,  no  doubt  prevented  the  Natchez 
from  carrying  their  project  into  execution.  It  is  proba- 
ble that  they  were  also  deterred  by  the  consideration, 
that  the  French,  if  hard  pressed,  would  put  their  pris- 
oners to  death. 

The  Great  Sun,  the  Stung  Serpent,  and  the  Little  Sun, 
who,  perhaps,  had  so  far  delayed  to  make  any  confes- 
sion, because  they  entertained  the  expectation  of  being 
rescued,  having  at  last  given  up  this  hope,  came  out 
with  a  frank  avowal.  They  maintained  that  they  never 
had  any  previous  knowledge  of  the  intended  murder  of 
the  French,  and  declared  that  four  of  the  assassins  were 
among  Bienville's  prisoners.  One  of  them  was  called 
the  Chief  of  the  Beard;  the  other  was  named  Alahofle- 
chia,  the  Chief  of  the  Walnut  Village  /  the  two  others 
were  ordinary  warriors.  They  affirmed  that  these  were 
the  only  guilty  ones,  with  the  exception  of  Oyelape,  the 
Chief  of  the  White  Clay,  who  had  fled.  "The  Great 
Spirit,"  they  said,  "  has  blinded  them,  has  turned  their 
wits  inside  out,  and  they  have,  of  their  own  accord,  de- 
livered themselves  into  thy  hands.  It  is  fortunate  that 
it  be  so ;  otherwise  the  two  warriors  might  have  fled, 
and  the  two  chiefs  are  such  favorites  with  the  nation, 
that  they  would  have  successfully  resisted  our  demand 
for  their  heads,  and  to  give  thee  satisfaction  would  have 
been  impossible.  As  it  is,  it  shows  that  our  Great 
Spirit  has  shaken  hands  with  the  God  of  the  Cross,  and 
has  passed  on  the  side  of  our  white  brother." 

It  was  then  the  1st  of  June,  and  the  river,  which  was 
rising  daily,  had  overflowed  the  island  one  foot  deep, 
and  made  the  quarters  of  the  French  more  than  uncom- 
fortable. Humidity,  combined  with  heat,  had  engen- 


BIENVILLE'S  TREATY.  149 

dered  disease,  and  half  of  Bienville's  men  were  stretched 
on  the  couch  of  sickness.  It  was  then  high  time  for 
him  to  put  an  end  to  the  situation  he  was  in.  Sum- 
moning to  his  presence  all  his  prisoners,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  four  men  who  had  been  designated  as  the 
assassins,  he  said  to  them :  "  Your  people,  after  having 
invited  my  people  to  trade  with  them^suddenly  violated 
the  laws  of  hospitality,  and  treacherously  murdered 
four  Frenchmen  who  were  their  guests.  They  thought 
the  atrocious  deed  would  remain  unknown,  and  that 
they  would  quietly  enjoy  their  blood-stained  plunder. 
But  the  souls  of  the  dead  spoke  to  me,  and  I  came, 
and  I  invited  you  to  my  camp,  as  you  had  invited  the 
French  to  your  villages,  and  you  became  my  guests,  as 
they  had  been  yours,  and  I  rose  upon  you,  as  you  rose 
upon  them.  Measure  for  measure.  But  I  shall  not 
butcher  you,  as  you  butchered  them.  You  killed  the 
innocent  and  the  confiding — I  shall  kill  only  the  treach- 
erous and  the  guilty.  Who  can  say  that  this  is  not  jus- 
tice ?  Now,  let  us  bury  the  hatchet  of  war.  I  am  sat- 
isfied with  and  believe  your  last  declarations.  Hear, 
then,  on  what  conditions  I  consent  to  release  you  and 
grant  you  peace.  You  will  swear  to  put  to  death,  as 
soon  as  possible,  Oyelape,  the  Chief  of  the  White  Clay, 
and  you  will  bring  his  head  to  the  French  officer  whom 
I  shall  station  among  you.  You  will  consent,  also,  to 
my  putting  to  death  the  two  chiefs  and  the  two  war- 
riors who  are  in  my  hands.  You  will  restore  every  ob- 
ject that  you  may  ever  have  taken  from  the  French ; 
for  what  has  been  lost  or  wasted,  you  will  force  your 
people  to  pay  the  equivalent  in  furs  and  provisions. 
You  will  oblige  them  to  cut  two  thousand  five  hundred 
stakes  of  acacia-wood,  thirteen  feet  long  by  a  diameter 
of  ten  inches,  and  to  convey  the  whole  to  the  bank  of 
the  Mississippi,  at  such  a  spot  as  it  will  please  the  French 


150  ITS  RATIFICATION  BY  THE  NATCHEZ. 

to  erect  a  fort ;  and  furthermore,  you  will  bind  your- 
selves to  furnish  us,  as  a  covering  for  our  buildings,  with 
the  barks  of  three  thousand  trees.  This  is  to  be  exe- 
cuted before  the  first  day  of  July ;  and  above  all,  you 
will  also  swear,  never,  under  any  pretext  or  color  what- 
ever, to  entertain  the  slightest  commercial  or  friendly 
relations  with  the  British,  whom  you  know  to  be  the 
eternal  enemies  of  the  French." 

The  chiefs  assented  to  these  terms,  swore  by  the  sun 
that  they  would,  for  the  future,  be  the  best  friends  of 
the  French,  and  urged  Bienville  to  smoke  the  pipe  of 
peace.  Bienville  knew  well  what  to  think  of  these 
hollow  protestations,  but  affected  to  believe  in  the  re- 
turn of  the  Natchez  to  the  sentiments  they  professed. 
He  refused,  however,  to  smoke,  because  he  considered 
that  the  treaty  of  peace  would  not  be  valid,  until  rati- 
fied in  a  meeting  of  the  whole  nation,  but  he  dismissed 
all  the  Indians  with  the  exception  of  the  Stung  Ser- 
pent, the  Little  Sun,  and  the  four  criminals  who  were 
doomed  to  death.  With  the  departing  Indians  he  sent 
Aid-major  Pailloux,  accompanied  by  three  soldiers,  to 
be  present  at  the  ratification  of  the  treaty.  On  the 
Yth  of  June,  nine  old  men  came  with  great  ceremony 
and  pomp,  to  give  to  Bienville  official  information  of 
the  expected  ratification. 

On  the  12th,  the  two  Indian  chiefs  were  put  to 
death,  the  two  warriors  having  already  met  their  fate 
on  the  9th.  When  the  Chief  of  the  Beard  saw  that 
the  moment  had  come  for  the  execution  of  the  sen- 
tence passed  upon  him,  he  ceased  his  death-song  which 
he  had  been  chanting  for  some  time,  and  took  up  a 
sort  of  war-song,  while  he  looked  fiercely  at  the  threat- 
ening muskets  of  the  French,  and  at  the  few  Indians  of 
his  tribe  whom  Bienville  had  detained  to  witness  the 
death  of  the  culprit. 


WAR  SONG  OF  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  BEARD.  151 


Song. 


a  Let  there  be  joy  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez !  A  child  is  born  to 
them  of  the  race  of  their  Suns.  A  boy  is  born  with  beard  on  his  chin  ! 
The  prodigy  still  works  on  from  generation  to  generation."  So  sang  the 
warriors  of  my  tribe  when  I  sprung  from  my  mother's  womb,  and  the 
shrill  cry  of  the  eagle  in  the  heavens  was  heard  in  joyous  response. 
Hardly  fifteen  summers  had  passed  over  my  head,  when  long  and  glossy 
my  beard  had  grown.  I  looked  round,  and  I  saw  that  I  was  the  only 
red  man  that  had  this  awful  mark  on  his  face,  and  I  interrogated  my 
mother,  and  she  said  : 

Son  of  the  Chiefs  of  the  Beard, 

Thou  shalt  know  this  mystery, 

In  which  thy  curious  eye  wishes  to  pry, 

When  thy  beard  from  black  becomes  red. 


Let  there  be  joy  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez !  A  hunter  is  born 
to  them,  a  hunter  of  the  race  of  their  Suns.  Ask  of  the  bears,  of  the  buf- 
faloes, of  the  tigers,  and  of  the  swift-footed  deer,  whose  arrows  they  fear 
most.  They  tremble  and  cower  when  the  footstep  of  the  hunter  with 
beard  on  his  chin  is  heard  on  the  heath.  But  I  was  born  too  with  brains 
in  my  head,  as  well  as  beard  on  my  chin,  and  I  pondered  on  my  mo- 
ther's words.  •  One  day,  when  a  leopard,  whom  I  strangled,  had  torn  my 
breast,  I  painted  my  beard  with  my  own  blood,  and  I  stood  smiling  before 
her.  She  said  nothing,  but  her  eye  gleamed  with  wild  delight,  and  she 
took  me  to  the  temple,  where,  standing  by  the  sacred  fire,  she  thus  sang 
to  me: 

Son  of  the  Chiefs  of  the  Beard, 

Thou  shalt  know  the  mystery, 

Since,  true  to  thy  nature,  with  thy  own  blood, 

Thy  black  beard  thou  hast  turned  to  red. 


Let  there  be  joy  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez  !  for  a  witted  chief,  wor- 
thy of  the  race  of  their  Suns,  has  been  born  to  them,  in  thee,  my  son ;  a 


152  WAR  SONG  OF  THE 

noble  chief  with  beard  on  his  chin  !  Listen  to  the  explanation  of  this 
prodigy.  In  days  of  old,  a  Natchez  maid  of  the  race  of  their  Suns,  was 
on  a  visit  to  the  Mobilians.  There,  she  soon  loved  the  youthful  chief  of 
that  nation,  and  her  wedding-day  was  nigh,  when  there  came  from  the 
big  salt  lake,  south,  a  host  of  bearded  men,  who  sacked  the  town,  slew 
the  red  chief  with  their  thunder,  and  one  of  those  accursed  evil  spirits 
used  violence  to  the  maid,  when  her  lover's  corpse  was  hardly  cold  in 
death.  She  found,  in  sorrow,  her  way  back  to  the  Natchez  hills,  where 
she  became  a  mother ;  and  lo !  the  boy  had  beard  on  his  chin  !  and 
when  he  grew  to  understand  his  mother's  words,  she  whispered  in  his 


Son  of  the  Chiefs  of  the  Beard, 

Born  from  a  bloody  day, 

Bloody  be  thy  hand,  bloody  be  thy  life, 

Until  thy  black  beard  with  blood  becomes  red. 


Let  there  be  joy  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez  !  In  my  first  ancestor, 
a  long  line  of  the  best  of  hunters,  of  chiefs,  and  of  warriors  of  the  race  of 
their  Suns,  had  been  born  to  them,  with  beard  on  their  chin  !  What 
chase  was  ever  unsuccessful,  when  over  it  they  presided  ?  When  they 
spoke  in  the  council  of  the  wise  men  of  the  nation,  did  it  not  always  turn 
out  that  their  advice,  whether  adopted  or  rejected,  was  the  best  in  the 
end?  In  what  battle  were  they  ever  defeated?  When  were  they 
known  to  be  worn  out  with  fatigue,  hardships,  hunger  or  thirst,  heat  or 
cold,  either  on  land  or  on  water  ?  Who  ever  could  stem,  as  they,  the 
rushing  current  of  the  father  of  rivers  ?  Who  can  count  the  number 
of  scalps  which  they  brought  from  distant  expeditions  ?  Their  names 
have  always  been  famous  in  the  wigwams  of  all  the  red  nations.  They 
have  struck  terror  into  the  boldest  breasts  of  the  enemies  of  the  Natchez ; 
and  mothers,  when  their  sons  paint  their  bodies  in  the  colors  of  war,  say 
to  them  : 

Fight  where  and  with  whom  you  please, 

But  beware,  oh !  beware  of  the  Chiefs  of  the  Beard ! 

Give  way  to  them,  as  you  would  to  death, 

Or  their  black  beards  with  your  blood  will  be  red  I 


Let  there  be  joy  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez !     When  the  first  Chie/ 
of  the  Beard  first  trimmed  the  sacred  fire  in  the  temple,  a  voice  was 


CHIEF  OF  THE  BEARD.  153 

heard,  which  said,  "  As  long  as  there  lives  a  chief,  of  the  race  of  the  Suns, 
with  beard  on  his  chin,  no  evil  can  happen  to  the  Natchez  nation  ;  but 
if  the  white  race  should  ever  resume  the  blood  which  it  gave  in  a  bloody 
day,  woe,  three  times  woe  to  the  Natchez !  of  them  nothing  will  remain 
but  the  shadow  of  a  name  !"  Thus  spoke  the  invisible  prophet.  Years 
rolled  on,  years  thick  on  years,  and  none  of  the  accursed  white  faces  were 
seen  !  But  they  appeared  at  last,  wrapped  up  in  their  pale  skins  like 
shrouds  of  the  dead ;  and  the  father  of  my  father,  whom  tradition  had 
taught  to  guard  against  the  predicted  danger,  slew  two  of  the  hated 
strangers,  and  my  father,  in  his  turn,  killed  four ! 

Praise  be  to  the  Chiefs  of  the  Beard ! 

Who  knew  how  to  avenge  their  old  ancestral  injury ! 

When  with  the  sweet  blood  of  a  white  foe, 

Their  black  beard  they  proudly  painted  red. 


Let  there  be  joy  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez  !  When  I  saw  the  glo- 
rious light  of  day,  there  was  born  to  them  a  great  warrior,  of  the  race  of 
their  Suns,  a  warrior  and  a  chief  with  beard  on  his  chin  !  The  pledge  of 
protection,  of  safety,  and  of  glory  stood  embodied  in  me.  When  I  shouted 
my  first  war-whoop,  the  owl  hooted  and  smelt  the  ghosts  of  my  enemies  ! 
— the  wolves  howled,  and  the  carrion  vultures  shrieked  with  joy,  for  they 
knew  their  food  was  coming ! — and  I  fed  them  with  Chickasaw  flesh, 
with  Choctaw  flesh,  until  they  were  gorged  with  the  flesh  of  the  red  men  ! 
A  kind  master  and  purveyor  I  was  to  them,  the  poor  dumb  creatures 
that  I  loved !  But  lately,  I  have  given  them  more  dainty  food.  I 
boast  of  having  done  better  than  my  father :  five  Frenchmen  have  I 
killed,  and  my  only  regret  at  dying  is,  that  it  will  prevent  me  from  kill- 
ing more ! 

Ha  !  ha !  ha !  that  was  game  worthy  of  the  Chief  of  the  Beard  I 

How  lightly  he  danced  !  ho  !  ho  !  ho ! 

How  gladly  he  shouted  !  ha !  ha !  ha ! 

Each  time  with  French  blood  his  black  beard  became  red  1 


VII. 

Let  sorrow  be  in  the  hearts  of  the  Natchez  !  The  great  hunter  is  no 
more  !  The  wise  chief  is  going  to  meet  his  forefathers  :  the  indomitable 
warrior  will  no  longer  raise  his  hatchet  in  the  defence  of  the  children  of 
the  sun.  0  burning  shame ! — he  was  betrayed  by  his  brother  chiefs,  who 


15-1  HIS  EXECUTION. 

sold  his  blood.  If  they  had  followed  his  advice,  they  would  have  united 
•with  the  Choctaws,  with  the  Chickasaws,  and  all  the  other  red  nations, 
and  they  would  have  slain  all  the  French  dogs  that  came  prowling  and 
stealing  over  the  beautiful  face  of  our  country.  But  there  was  too  much 
of  the  woman  in  their  cowardly  hearts.  Well  and  good !  Let  the  will 
of  fate  be  accomplished !  The  white  race  will  soon  resume  the  blood 
which  they  gave,  and  then  the  glory  and  the  very  existence  of  the  Nat- 
chez nation  will  have  departed  forever  with  the  Chief  of  the  Beard ;  for 
I  am  the  last  of  my  race,  and  my  blood  flows  in  no  other  human  veins. 
O  Natchez !  Natchez !  remember  the  prophet's  voice  !  I  am  content  to 
die,  for  I  leave  behind  me  none  but  the  doomed,  and  I  go  to  revel  with 
my  brave  ancestors ! 

They  will  recognize  their  son  in  the  Chief  of  the  Beard  ; 
They  will  welcome  him  to  their  glorious  homestead, 
When  they  see  so  many  scalps  at  his  girdle, 
And  his  black  beard  with  French  blood  painted  red ! 

He  ceased,  and  stood  up  before  the  admiring  eyes  of 
the  French  with  a  look  of  exulting  defiance,  and  with 
his  fine  athletic  form  measuring  seven  feet  high,  and 
seemingly  dilated  into  more  gigantic  proportions  by  the 
excitement  which  convulsed  his  soul.  The  French 
officer  who  commanded  the  platoon  of  soldiers  chosen 
on  this  occasion  to  fulfill  a  melancholy  duty,  gave  the 
word,  "fire  /"  and  the  Chief  of  the  Beard  passed  into 
another  world. 

On  the  3d  of  August,  the  fortifications  ordered  by 
Bienville  had  been  completed,  the  Indians  having 
strictly  complied  with  the  terms  of  the  treaty.  They 
did  more :  they  not  only  furnished  all  the  materials 
which  had  been  stipulated,  but  labored  with  great 
zeal  in  cutting  ditches,  in  raising  the  parapets  and 
bastions  of  the  fort,  and  in  constructing  the  buildings 
required  by  the  French.  Stung  Serpent  even  sent  one 
hundred  and  fifty  men  to  the  French,  to  transport  all 
their  baggage,  ammunition,  and  provisions,  from  the 
Tunicas  to  the  Natchez.  On  the  25th  of  August,  Bien- 


BIENVILLE  ERECTS  FORT  ROSALIE.  155 

ville  found  himself  comfortably  and  securely  established 
in  the  strong  position  which  he  had  in  such  a  wily 
manner  obtained,  as  we  know,  from  the  Natchez.  How 
ever,  they  appeared  to  have  dropped  all  resentment  at 
the  mode  by  which  Bienville  had  got  such  advantages 
over  them,  and  they  behaved  as  if  they  were  extremely 
desirous  to  impress  upon  him  the  belief  that  they  were 
delighted  at  his  forming  a  settlement  among  them. 
Five  or  six  hundred  men  of  that  tribe,  accompanied  by 
three  hundred  women,  came  one  day  to  dance  under 
the  walls  of  the  fort,  in  manifestation  of  their  joy  at 
the  termination  of  their  quarrel  with  the  French,  and 
at  the  determination  of  the  pale  faces  to  establish  them- 
selves among  their  red  friends.  Bienville  invited  the 
chiefs  to  come  into  the  fort,  and  treated  t^em  with  due 
honors.  It  is  evident  that  the  Indians  wished  to  pro- 
pitiate the  strangers  whom  they  could  not  shake  off, 
and  whom,  from  instinct  alone,  they  must  have  regard- 
ed as  their  most  dangerous  enemies,  and  as  the  future 
cause  of  their  ultimate  ruin.  But  that  they  felt  any 
satisfaction  at  the  intrusion  of  these  new-comers,  the 
knowledge  of  human  nature  forbids  us  to  believe.  Two 
distinct  and  antagonistical  races  had  met  front  to  front, 
and  at  the  very  moment  they  appeared  to  embrace  in 
amity,  and  joined  in  the  carousing  feast,  the  one  was 
secretly  meditating  subjugation,  and  the  other  resist- 
ance and  revenge. 

On  the  28th  of  August,  seeing  no  signs  of  hostility 
from  the  Indians,  Bienville  left  Aid-major  Pailloux  in 
command  of  the  new  fort,  which  was  called  "  Rosalie,' 
and  departed  for  Mobile,  where  he  arrived  on  the  4th 
of  October,  with  the  satisfaction  of  having  accomplished 
the  difficult  task  with  which  he  had  been  charged. 
This  was  one  cause  of  triumph  over  his  adversary, 
Cadillac,  but  he  there  found  another  cause  of  gratula- 


156       CADILLAC  SUPERSEDED— ANECDOTES  OF  CADILLAC. 

tion  in  a  letter  to  him  from  the  minister  of  the  marine 
department,  in  which  he  was  instructed  to  resume  the 
government  of  the  colony,  in  the  absence  of  De  1'Epinay, 
appointed  to  succeed  Cadillac.  This  was  fortunate  for 
Bienville,  for  he  found  his  quondam  superior  in  a  tow- 
ering rage  at  his  success,  and  at  what  he  called  Bien- 
ville's  execrable  perfidy  in  taking  forcible  possession 
of  the  Indian  chiefs,  as  he  did.  But  Bienville  con- 
tented himself  with  laughing  at  his  impotent  vitu- 
peration. 

Before  closing  with  Cadillac's  administration,  I  shall 
briefly  relate  some  other  curious  incidents,  with  which 
it  was  signalized.  In  1715,  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Dutigne,  who  loved  a  joke,  wishing  to  amuse  himself 
with  Cadillac's  inordinate  passion  for  the  discovery  of 
mines,  exhibited  to  him  some  pieces  of  ore,  which  con- 
tained certain  proportions  of  silver,  and  persuaded  him 
that  they  had  been  found  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Kaskaskias.  This  was  enough  to  fire  Cadillac's  over- 
heated imagination.  Anticipating  the  realization  of  all 
his  dreams,  he  immediately  set  off  for  the  Illinois, 
where,  much  to  his  mortification,  he  learned  that  he 
had  been  imposed  upon  by  Dutigne,  to  whom  the  de- 
ceptive pieces  of  ore  had  been  given  by  a  Mexican,  who 
had  brought  them  from  his  country.  After  an  ab- 
sence of  eight  months,  spent  in  fruitless  researches,  he 
returned  to  Mobile,  where  he  found  himself  the  laugh- 
ing-stock of  the  community.  This  was  not  calculated 
to  soothe  his  mind,  and  in  one  of  his  dispatches,  in 
which  he  gave  an  account  of  the  colony,  he  said  : 

"There  are  as  many  governors  here  as  there  are 
officers.  Every  one  of  them  would  like  to  perform  his 
duties  according  to  his  own  interpretation.  As  to  the 
superior  council  of  this  province,  allow  me  to  represent 
to  your  grace,  that  its  assuming  the  authority  to  mod- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  QUARREL  WITH  THE  NATCHEZ.  157 

ify  his  Majesty's  orders  is  fraught  with  injury  to  the 
royal  interest,  and  precludes  the  possibility  of  establish- 
ing here  a  good  government,  because  the  language  of 
its  members  smacks  more  of  the  independence  of  repub- 
licans than  of  the  subordination  of  loyal  subjects.  ll 
will  or  will  not] — '  it  shall  or  shall  not  be]  are  words  of 
daily  utterance  in  their  mouths.  A  governor  must  be 
clothed  with  power  superior  to  any  other,  in  order  that 
he  may  act  with  effect,  and  cause  to  be  executed  with 
prompt  exactitude  the  commands  of  his  Majesty,  in- 
stead of  his  being  checked  by  any  controlling  or  op- 
posing influence ;  which  is  always  the  case,  when  he  is 
forced  to  consult  subaltern  officers,  who  are  swayed  en- 
tirely by  their  own  interest,  and  care  very  little  for  the 
service  of  the  king,  or  for  the  prosperity  of  the  colony." 
These  were  stones  flung  at  Bienville,  at  the  commissary 
Duclos,  and  at  the  superior  council,  who  threw  obstacles 
in  his  way,  and  interfered  with  the  exercise  of  the  ab- 
solute power  which  he  thought  that  he  possessed,  be- 
cause, as  governor,  he  considered  himself  to  be  an  em- 
anation from,  and  a  representation  of  the  king  ! 

On  his  way  up  the  river,  to  search  for  gold  and  sil- 
ver, Cadillac  stopped  at  Natchez.  As  soon  as  he  was 
known  to  approach,  the  Indian  chiefs  came  out  in  bar- 
baric state  to  meet  him,  and  according  to  their  usages, 
presented  to  him  their  calumet,  in  token  of  peace  and 
amity.  Highly  incensed  Cadillac  was  at  the  pre- 
sumption of  the  savages,  in  supposing  that  he  would 
contaminate  his  patrician  lips  with  the  contact  of  their 
vile  pipe.  He  accordingly  treated  the  poor  Indians 
very  little  better  than  he  would  uncouth  animals, 
thrusting  themselves  into  his  presence. .  His  having  de- 
parted without  having  consented  to  smoke  with  them, 
had  impressed  the  Natchez,  who  could  not  understand 
the  nature  of  his  pride,  with  the  idea  that  he  meditated 


158  CHOCTAW  CHIEF  ASSASSINATED. 

war  upon  their  tribe.  Then,  they  resolved  to  antici- 
pate the  expected  blow,  and  they  secretly  massacred 
some  Frenchmen  who  happened  to  be  in  their  villages. 
Hence  the  origin  of  the  first  quarrel  of  the  Natchez 
with  the  French,  to  which  Bienville  put  an  end  with 
such  signal  success,  but  with  a  little  sprinkling  of 
treacheiy. 

It  was  not  the  Natchez  alone  whom  Cadillac  had 
offended.  He  had  alienated  from  the  French  the  affec- 
tions of  the  Choctaws,  who  had  always  been  their 
friends,  but  who,  latterly,  had  invited  the  English  to 
settle  among  them.  Cadillac  ordered  them  to  expel 
their  new  guests,  but  the  Choctaws  answered  that  they 
did  not  care  for  him,  nor  for  the  forty  or  fifty  French 
rogues  whom  he  had  under  his  command.  This  was 
the  kick  of  the  ass,  and  Cadillac  resolved  not  to  bear  it, 
but  to  show  them  that  the  lion  was  not  yet  dead. 
After  deep  cogitations,  he  conceived,  for  their  punish- 
ment, a  politic  stroke,  which  he  carried  into  execution, 
and  of  which  he  informed  his  government  with  Spartan 
brevity :  "  I  have  persuaded,"  said  he,  "  the  brother  of 
the  great  chief  of  the  Choctaws  to  kill  his  sovereign 
and  brother,  pledging  myself  to  recognize  him  as  his 
successor.  He  did  so,  and  came  here  with  an  escort  of 
one  hundred  men.  I  gave  him  presents,  and  secured 
from  him  an  advantageous  peace." 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  Cadillac,  with  a  very  bad  grace, 
pretended  that  his  tender  sensibilities  were  shocked  at 
the  treatment  of  the  Natchez  chiefs  by  Bienville.  In 
his  case  it  was  the  eye  with  the  beam  finding  fault  with 
the  mote  in  his  neighbor's  eye. 

On  the  22d  of  June,  1716,  the  exasperation  of  Cadil- 
lac, who  found  himself  in  a  hornet's  nest,  had  become 
such,  that  he  vented  his  feelings  in  these  terms,  in  one 
of  his  dispatches :  "  Decidedly,  this  colony  is  a  monster 


CADILLAC'S  REPORT  ON  THE  STATE  OF  LOUSIAtfA.        159 

without  head  or  tail,  and  its  government  is  a  shapeless 
absurdity.  The  cause  of  it  is,  that  the  fictions  of  fabu- 
lists have  been  believed  in  preference  to  the  veracity  of 
my  declarations.  Ah!  why  is  there  in  falsehood  a 
charm  which  makes  it  more  acceptable  than  truth? 
Has  it  not  been  asserted  that  there  are  mines  in  Arkan- 
sas and  elsewhere  ?  It  is  a  deliberate  error.  Has  not 
a  certain  set  of  novel-writers  published  that  this  country 
is  a  paradise,  when  its  beauty  or  utility  is  a  mere  phan- 
tasm of  the  brain  ?  I  protest  that,  having  visited  and 
examined  the  whole  of  it  with  care,  I  never  saw  any 
thing  so  worthless.  This  I  must  say,  because  my  con- 
science forbids  me  to  deceive  his  Majesty.  I  have  al- 
ways regarded  truth  as  a  queen,  whose  laws  I  was  bound 
to  obey,  like  a  devoted  knight  and  a  faithful  subject. 
This  is,  no  doubt,  the  cause  of  my  having  stuck  fast  in 
the  middle  of  my  career,  and  not  progressed  in  the  path 
of  promotion,  while  others,  who  had  more  political  skill, 
understood  how  to  frame,  at  my  expense,  pleasing  mis- 
representations. I  know  how  to  govern  as  well  as  any 
body,  but  poverty  and  impotence  are  two  ugly  scars  on 
the  face  of  a  governor.  What  can  I  do  with  a  force  of 
forty  soldiers,  out  of  whom  five  or  six  are  disabled  ?  A 
pretty  army  that  is,  and  well  calculated  to  make  me  re- 
spected by  the  inhabitants  or  by  the  Indians !  As  a 
climax  to  my  vexation,  they  are  badly  fed,  badly  paid, 
badly  clothed,  and  without  discipline.  As  to  the  offi- 
cers, they  are  not  much  better.  Yerily,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  there  is  in  the  whole  universe  such  another 
government." 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  under  such  circumstances, 
and  with  the  ideas  which  fermented  in  his  head,  Cadil- 
lac should  have  thought  that  a  terrible  crisis  was  at 
hand.  Laboring  under  this  impression,  he  took  refuge 
in  Dauphine  Island,  where  he  issued  a  proclamation,  in 


160  CADILLAC  IS  RIDICULED  BY  HIS  ENEMIES. 

which  he  stated  that,  considering  the  spirit  of  revolt  and 
sedition  which  reigned  in  the  colony,  and  the  many 
quarrels  and  duels  which  occurred  daily,  and  were  pro- 
duced by  hasty  or  imprudent  words,  by  drunkenness, 
or  by  the  presence  of  loose  women,  he  prohibited  all  ple- 
beians from  wearing  a  sword,  or  carrying  other  weapons, 
either  by  day  or  by  night,  under  the  penalty  of  one 
month's  imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  300  livres,  to  be 
applied  to  the  construction  of  a  church.  As  to  persons 
of  noble  birth,  they  were  to  prove  their  right  to  wear  a 
sword,  by  depositing  their  titles  in  the  archives  of  the 
superior  council,  to  be  there  examined  and  registered. 
Cadillac's  enemies,  and  he  had  many,  availed  themselves 
of  this  proclamation  to  turn  him  into  ridicule.  They 
fabricated  every  sort  of  mock  papers  of  nobility,  to 
submit  them  to  the  superior  council,  the  members  of 
which,  from  ignorance  or  from  a  desire  to  annoy  Cadil- 
lac, referred  the  whole  of  them  to  him,  who,  as  governor, 
was  their  president.  Sadly  puzzled  was  Cadillac  on 
these  occasions,  and  his  judgments  afforded  infinite 
amusement  to  the  colonists.  His  waggish  tormentors 
went  farther,  and,  pretending  to  have  formed  an  order 
of  chivalry,  they  elected  him,  in  a  solemn  meeting,  grand 
master  of  that  order,  under  the  title  of  the  Knight  of 
the  golden  calf.  They  declared,  with  feigned  gravity, 
that  this  was  done  in  commemoration  of  the  wonderful 
achievements  and  labors  of  their  illustrious  governor  in 
his  researches  for  precious  metals.  This  piece  of  pleas- 
antry stung  him  to  the  quick ;  but  he  winced  particu- 
larly at  a  song  which,  in  alternate  couplets,  compared 
the  merits  of  the  Knight  of  the  golden  calf  with  those 
of  the  celebrated  Knight  of  the  doleful  countenance,  and 
gave  the  preference  to  the  first. 

Cadillac  was  preparing  to  repress  these  rebellious  and 
heinous  disorders,  when  he  received  a  letter  from  Crozat, 


HE  IS  DISMISSED  FROM  OFFICE.  161 

in  which  the  great  merchant  told  him  bluntly,  that  all 
the  evils  of  which  he  complained  originated  from  his 
own  bad  administration.  At  the  foot  of  the  letter,  the 
minister  of  the  marine  department  had  written  these 
words :  "  The  governor,  Lamothe  Cadillac,  and  the  com- 
missary, Duclos,  whose  dispositions  and  humors  are  in- 
compatible, and  whose  intellects  are  not  equal  to  the 
functions  with  which  his  Majesty  has  intrusted  them, 
are  dismissed  from  office."  I  leave  it  to  a  more  graphic 
pen  to  describe  Cadillac's  look  and  Cadillac's  feelings 
when  this  thunderbolt  fell  on  his  head.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  that  he  contemptuously  shook  off  his  feet  the  colo- 
nial dust  which  had  there  gathered,  and  bundling  up 
his  household  gods,  removed  himself  and  them  out  of 
Louisiana,  which  he  pronounced  to  be  hell-doomed. 

At  that  time,  there  were  only  a  few  negroes  in  the 
colony,  and  they  were  all  to  be  found  about  Mobile  or 
in  Dauphine  Island.  These  were  the  only  persons  in 
whom  some  sympathy  was  discovered  for  the  departing 
governor.  This  sympathy  arose  from  a  ludicrous  cause. 
Cadillac  had  carried  to  America  the  fondest  remem- 
brance of  his  home  in  Europe,  and  he  loved  to  dilate 
on  the  merits  of  France,  of  his  native  province  of  Gas- 
cony,  of  the  beautiful  river  Garonne,  arid  particularly 
of  his  old  feudal  tower,  in  which  he  pretended  that  one 
of  his  ancestors  had  been  blessed  with  the  inestimable 
honor  of  receiving  the  famous  Black  Prince,  the  boast 
of  England.  There  was  hardly  one  day  in  the  week 
that  he  did  not  harp  upon  this  favorite  theme,  which  he 
always  resumed  with  new  exultation.  There  was  not  a 
human  creature  in  the  colony,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Indians,  who  was  not  familiar  with  this  oft-repeated 
anecdote,  which  had  gained  for  Cadillac  the  nickname 
of  the  Black  Prince.  It  became  a  sort  of  designation 
by  which  he  was  as  well  known  as  by  his  own  family 

L 


162  THE  CURATE  DE  LA  VEXTE. 

name ;  and  the  poor  Africans,  who  frequently  heard  it, 
had  supposed  that  Cadillac  drew  his  origin  from  a  prince 
of  their  blood  and  color.  This  was  to  them  a  source 
of  no  little  pride,  and  to  the  colonists  a  cause  of  endless 
merriment. 

There  was  another  person  wrho  highly  appreciated 
Cadillac,  and  who  keenly  regretted  his  dismissal  from 
office :  that  person  was  the  Curate  de  la  Vente.  No 
Davion  was  he,  nor  did  he  resemble  a  Montigny.  With 
a  pale  face  and  an  emaciated  body ;  with  a  narrow  fore- 
head, which  went  up  tapering  like  a  pear ;  with  thin 
compressed  lips,  never  relaxed  by  a  smile ;  with  small 
gray  eyes,  occupying  very  diminutive  sockets,  w^hich 
seemed  to  have  been  bored  with  a  gimlet ;  and  with 
heavy  and  shaggy  eyebrows,  from  beneath  which  is- 
sued, habitually,  cold  and  even  stern  looks ;  he  would 
have  struck  the  most  unobserving,  as  being  the  very 
personification  of  fanaticism.  When  he  studied,  to 
qualify  himself  for  nis  profession,  he  had,  several  times, 
read  the  Bible  and  the  Gospels  through ;  but  his  little 
mind  had  then  stuck  to  the  letter,  and  had  never  been 
able  to  comprehend  the  spirit,  of  the  holy  books.  Like 
a  fly,  it  had  moved  all  round  the  flask  which  contained 
the  sweet  liquor,  without  being  able  to  extract  the 
slightest  particle  of  it.  When  ordained  a  priest,  the 
Bible  and  the  Gospels  were  consigned  to  oblivion. 
For  him,  kneeling  was  prayer,  and  prayer  was  religion. 
Christianity,  which  is  the  triumph  of  reason,  because  it 
exacts  no  belief  but  that  which  flows  from  rational  con- 
viction, was,  according  to  his  conception,  nothing  but  a 
mysterious  and  inexplicable  hodge-podge  of  crude  and 
despotic  dictates,  to  be  accepted  on  trust  and  submitted 
to  without  reflection,  discussion,  or  analysis  of  any  kind : 
for  him,  thought  in  such  matters  would  have  been  a 
grievous  sin ;  his  breviary  was  the  only  book  which  he 


THE  CURATE  DE  LA  VENTE.  163 

had  read  for  many  years,  and  he  laid  to  his  soul  the 
flattering  unction  that  he  was  a  pious  man,  because  he 
minutely  complied  with  the  ritual  of  his  church.  He 
fasted,  did  penance,  and  never  failed  reciting,  in  due 
time,  all  the  litanies.  Thus,  observing  strictly  all  the 
forms  and  discipline  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  he 
thought  himself  a  very  good  Christian.  But  every  man 
who  did  not  frequently  confess  to  a  priest,  and  did  not 
receive  the  sacraments  as  often  as  the  catechism  of  his 
creed  required,  was,  in  his  opinion,  no  better  than  a 
pagan,  and  was  entirely  out  of  the  pale  of  salvation. 
Animated  with  the  fierce  zeal  of  a  bigot,  he  would  not 
have  scrupled,  if  in  his  power,  to  use  the  strong  hand 
of  violence  to  secure  converts,  and  to  doom  to  the  stake 
and  to  the  fagot  the  unbeliever  in  all  the  tenets, 
whether  fundamental  or  incidental,  of  Catholicism :  for 
his  religion  consisted  in  implicit  belief  in  all  the  pre- 
scriptions of  his  church,  and  his  church  was  God. 
Hence,  all  government  which  was  not  theocratical,  or 
bordering  on  it,  he  looked  upon  as  an  unlawful  and  sin- 
ful assumption  of  power,  which  the  church,  by  all 
means,  was  bound  to  take  back,  as  its  legitimate  prop- 
erty. 

With  such  dispositions,  the  Curate  de  la  Vente  soon 
became  the  terror  of  his  flock,  whose  frailties  he  de- 
nounced with  the  epileptic  violence  of  a  maniac,  and 
whose  slightest  delinquencies  he  threatened  with  eter- 
nal damnation.  A  fanatic  disciplinarian,  he  had  been 
shocked  at  the  laxity  with  which  the  soldiers,  the  offi- 
cers, the  Canadian  boatmen  and  traders,  and  the  other 
colonists,  performed  their  religious  duties.  He  did  not 
take  into  consideration  that  a  judicious  allowance  ought 
to  be  made  for  the  want  of  education  of  some,  for  the 
temptations  which  peculiar  circumstances  threw  in  the 
way  of  others,  and  for  the  particular  mode  of  life  to 


164  THE  CURATE  DE  LA  VENTE. 

which  all  were  condemned,  and  which  might  be  re- 
ceived in  extenuation,  if  not  in  justification  of  many 
faults.  He  might  have  reclaimed  some  by  the  soothing 
gentleness  of  friendly  admonition:  he  discouraged  or 
disgusted  all  by  the  roughness  of  intemperate  reproach. 
Aware  of  the  aversion  which  he  had  inspired,  and  in- 
dignant at  the  evil  practices  in  which  some  indulged 
openly  from  inclination,  and  others,  out  of  vain  bravado 
to  a  minister  they  detested,  he  had  supported  Cadillac 
in  all  the  acts  of  his  administration,  in  all  his  represen- 
tations of  the  state  of  the  country ;  and  he  had  himself 
more  than  once  written  to  the  ministry,  that  God  would 
never  smile  upon  a  colony  inhabited  by  such  demons, 
heathens,  and  scoffers  at  the  Holy  Church ;  and  he  had 
recommended,  not  a  Saint  Bartholomew  execution,  it  is 
true,  but  a  general  expulsion  of  all  the  people  that  were 
in  the  colony,  in  order  to  replace  them  with  a  more  re- 
ligious-minded community.  As  to  the  Indians,  he  con- 
sidered them  as  sons  of  perdition,  who  offered  few  hopes, 
if  any,  of  being  redeemed  from  the  bondage  of  Satan. 

Seeing  that  the  Ministry  had  paid  no  attention  to  his 
recommendations,  he  had  determined  to  make,  out  of 
the  infidels  by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  as  much 
money  as  he  could,  which  he  intended  to  apply  to  the 
purpose  of  advancing  the  interests  of  the  church,  in 
some  more  favorable  spot  for  the  germination  of  eccle- 
siastical domination.  With  this  view,  he  made  no  scru- 
ple to  fatten  upon  the  Philistines,  and  he  opened  a  shop, 
where  he  kept  for  sale,  barter,  or  exchange,  a  variety 
of  articles  of  trade.  He  disposed  of  them  at  a  price  of 
which  the  purchasers  complained  as  being  most  uncon- 
scionable ;  and  he  also  loaned  money  to  the  Gentiles, 
at  a  rate  of  interest  which  was  extravagantly  usurious. 
As  a  salvo  to  his  conscience,  he  had  adopted  the  com- 
fortable motto  that  the  end  justifies  the  means.  The 


THE  CURATE  DE  LA  VENTE.  165 

benighted  Indians  and  the  unchristian  Christians  (to  ust> 
his  own  expressions)  were  not  spared  by  him.  When 
the  circumstance  was  too  tempting,  and  he  had.  to  deal 
with  notorious  unbelievers,  he  would  even  indulge  in 
what  he  would  have  called  actual  cheating,  if  coming 
from  a  Christian  dealing  with  a  Christian.  On  these 
occasions,  he  would  groan  piteously,  cross  himself  de- 
voutly, fall  on  his  knees  before  the  image  of  our  Savior, 
and  striking  his  breast  with  compunction,  he  would  ex- 
claim, "  O  sweet  Jesus,  if  this  be  an  infraction  of  thy 
law,  it  is  at  least  a  trifling  one,  and  it  is  done  for  the 
benefit  of  thy  church :  forgive  me,  O  Lamb  of  mercy, 
and  I  will,  in  expiation,  say  twelve  paters  and  twelve 
aves  at  the  foot  of  the  altar  of  thy  Virgin  Mother,  or 
I  will  abstain  a  whole  day  from  all  food,  in  thy  honor." 
After  this  soliloquy,  he  would  get  up,  perfectly  recon- 
ciled with  himself  and  with  his  Maker,  to  whom,  in 
these  cases,  he  always  took  care  to  keep  his  plighted 
word.  Many  a  time,  his  worldly  transactions  for  the 
glorification  of  the  church,  and  for  the  increase  of  church 
property  at  the  expense  of  those  he  considered  as  infi- 
dels, forced  him  to  enter  into  such  strange  compromises 
with  his  conscience  and  with  his  God.  Hence  the  ori- 
gin of  the  accusation  brought  against  him  by  Bienville, 
in  one  of  his  dispatches,  and  which  I  have  already  re- 
ported, "that  he  kept  open  shop,  and  was  a  shrewd 
compound  of  the  Jew  and  of  the  Arab."  The  truth  is, 
that  he  was  sincere  in  his  mistaken  faith,  pious  to  the 
best  of  his  understanding,  a  Christian  in  will  although 
not  in  fact,  a  zealous  priest  in  his  way,  which  he  thought 
a  correct  one,  and  a  lamentable  compound  of  fanaticism 
and  imbecility. 

In  August,  1*716,  a  short  time  before  the  recall  of 
Cadillac,  there  had  returned  to  Mobile  a  young  man 
named  St.  Denis,  who  was  a  relation  of  Bienville,  and 


166  ST.  DENIS— HIS  CHARACTER. 

whom,  two  years  before,  Cadillac  had  sent  to  Natchi- 
toches,  to  oppose  the  Spaniards  in  an  establishment 
which  it  was  reported  they  intended  to  make  in  that 
part  of  the  country.  His  orders  were,  to  proceed  after- 
ward to  New  Mexico,  to  ascertain  if  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  establish  in  that  direction  internal  relations 
of  commerce  between  Louisiana  and  the  Mexican  prov- 
inces, where  it  was  hoped  that  Crozat  would  find  a 
large  outlet  for  his  goods.  When  St.  Denis  arrived  at 
the  village  of  the  Natchitoches,  hearing  no  tidings  of 
the  supposed  expedition  of  the  Spaniards,  he  left  there 
a  few  Canadians,  whom  he  ordered  to  form  a  settle- 
ment ;  and,  accompanied  by  twelve  others,  who  were 
picked  men,  and  by  a  few  Indians,  he  undertook  to  ac- 
complish the  more  difficult  part  of  his  mission. 

I  would  recommend  this  expedition  of  St.  Denis, 
and  his  adventures,  to  any  one  in  search  of  a  subject  for 
literary  composition.  It  is  a  fruitful  theme,  affording 
to  the  writer  the  amplest  scope  for  the  display  of  tal- 
ent of  the  most  varied  order.  St.  Denis  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  characters  of  the  early  history  of 
Louisiana. 

"  He  hither  came,  a  private  gentleman, 
But  young  and  brave,  and  of  a  family 
Ancient  and  noble." 

He  was  a  knight-errant  in  his  feelings  and  in  his 
doings  throughout  life,  and  every  thing  connected  with 
him,  or  that  came  within  the  purview  of  his  existence, 
was  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  romance.  The  noble 
bearing  of  his  tall,  well-proportioned,  and  remarkably 
handsome  person  was  in  keeping  with  the  lofty  spirit 
of  his  soul.  He  was  one  in  whom  nature  had  given  the 
world  assurance  of  a  man,  and  that  assurance  was  so 
strongly  marked  in  the  countenance  of  St.  Denis,  that 


HIS  JOURNEY  TO  MEXICO.  167 

wherever  lie  appeared,  lie  instantaneously  commanded 
love,  respect,  and  admiration.  There  are  "beings  who 
carry  in  their  lineaments  the  most  legible  evidence  of 
their  past  and  future  fate.  Such  was  St.  Denis,  and 
nobody,  not  even  the  wild  and  untutored  Indian,  could 
have  left  his  presence,  without  at  least  a  vague  impres- 
sion that  he  had  seen  one  not  born  for  the  common 
purposes  of  ordinary  life. 

The  laborious  journey  of  St.  Denis  from  Mobile 
to  Natchitoches,  the  incidents  connected  with  it,  the 
description  of  the  country  he  passed  through,  and  of 
all  the  tribes  of  Indians  he  visited,  would  furnish  suf- 
ficient materials  for  an  interesting  book.  But  what  an 
animated  picture  might  be  drawn  of  that  little  band  of 
Canadians,  with  St.  Denis  and  his  friend  Jallot,  the  ec- 
centric surgeon,  when  they  crossed  the  Sabine,  and 
entered  upon  the  ocean-like  prairies  of  the  present  state 
of  Texas  !  How  they  hallooed  with  joy  when  they  saw 
the  immense  surface  which  spread  before  them,  black- 
ened with  herds  of  buffaloes,  that  wallowed  lazily  in  the 
tall  luxuriant  grass  which  afforded  them  such  luscious 
food,  and  such  downy  couches  for  repose !  For  the  sake 
of  variety,  the  travelers  would  sometimes  turn  from 
nobler  to  meaner  game,  from  the  hunchbacked  buffalo 
to  the  timid  deer  that  crossed  their  path.  Sometimes 
they  would  stumble  on  a  family  of  bears,  and  make  at 
their  expense  a  delicious  repast,  which  they  enjoyed 
comfortably  seated  on  piled-up  skins,  the  testimonials 
of  their  hunting  exploits.  Oh !  there  is  sweetness  in 
the  prairie  air,  there  is  a  richness  of  health  and  an  elas- 
ticity of  spirit, 

"  Which  bloated  ease  ne'er  deigned  to  taste." 

But  these  pleasures,  exciting  as  they  were,  would 
perhaps  have  palled  upon  St.  Denis  and  his  compan- 


168  SURGEON  JALLOT. 

ions,  and  might  in  the  end  have  been  looked  upon  as 
tame  by  them,  from  the  frequency  of  their  repetition, 
if  they  had  not  been  intermingled  with  nobler  sport, 
which  consisted  in  oft-recurring  skirmishes  with  the 
redoubtable  Comanches,  upon  whose  hunting-grounds 
they  had  intruded.  On  these  occasions,  St.  Denis, 
protected  against  the  arrows  of  the  enemy  by  a  full  suit 
•of  armor,  which  he  had  brought  from  Europe,  and 
mounted  on  a  small  black  jennet,  as  strong  as  an  ox 
and  as  fleet  as  the  wind,  would  rush  upon  the  aston- 
ished Indians,  and  perform  such  feats  with  his  battle- 
axe,  as  those  poor  savages  had  never  dreamed  of. 
These  encounters  gave  infinite  satisfaction  to  Jallot, 
who  was  a  passionate  lover  of  his  art,  and  who  never 
was  seen  in  a  good  humor,  except  when  he  was  tending 
a  wound.  But  he  had  more  frequently  the  chance 
of  dissecting  than  of  curing  the  poor  Indians,  for, 
in  most  cases,  the  stroke  of  the  white  man's  weapon 
was  certain  and  instantaneous  death.  Still,  he  found 
some  compensation  in  the  numerous  wounds  inflicted 
by  the  Indians  on  his  own  companions  ;  he  had  a  fond- 
ness for  arrow  wounds,  which  he  declared  to  be  the 
nicest  and  genteelest  of  all  wounds.  One  day,  he  was 
so  delighted  with  a  wound  of  this  kind,  which  he  pro- 
nounced, much  to  the  exasperation  of  his  patient,  to 
be  supremely  beautiful,  that  he  actually  smiled  with 
self-gratulation  and  cracked  a  joke ! — to  do  this,  his 
excitement  must  have  been  immense.  Another  day, 
when  an  Indian  had  been  struck  down  by  the  battle-axe 
of  St.  Denis,  without,  however,  being  killed  outright, 
he  felt  such  a  keen  professional  emotion  at  the  pros- 
pect of  probing  and  nursing  a  gash  which  he  thought 
rare  and  extraordinary,  that  he  franticly  jumped  upon 
St.  Denis,  hugged  him  with  enthusiasm,  called  him  his 
best  friend,  passionately  thanked  him  for  the  most  valu- 


ST.  DENIS  ARRESTED  BY  THE  GOVERNOR  OF  CAOUIS.     169 

able  case  lie  had  given  him,  and  swore  that  his  Indian 
should  be  carried  on,  whatever  impediment  it  might 
be  to  their  march,  until  he  died  or  was  cured.  Who 
would  have  thought  that  this  man,  when  he  was  not 
wielding  his  surgical  instruments,  was  the  most  hu- 
mane being  in  the  world,  and  concealed,  under  an  ap- 
pearance of  crabbed  malignity,  the  tenderest  sensibili- 
ties of  the  heart  ?  Such  are  the  mysteries  of  human 
nature  ! 

St.  Denis  and  his  troop  reached  at  last  the  Rio 
Bravo,  at  a  Spanish  settlement  then  called  the  Fort  of 
St.  John  the  Baptist,  or  Presidio  del  Norte.  Don 
Pedro  de  Villescas  was  the  commander  of  that  place. 
He  received  the  French  with  the  most  courteous  hos- 
pitality, and  informed  them  that  he  could  not  make 
any  commercial  arrangements  with  them,  but  that  he 
would  submit  their  propositions  to  a  superior  officer, 
who  was  governor  of  the  town  of  Caouis,  situated  at 
the  distance  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles  in  the  ul- 
terior. Spaniards  are  not  famous  for  rapidity  of  action. 
Before  the  message  of  Villescas  was  carried  to  Caouis, 
and  before  the  expected  answer  carne  back  to  the  Pre- 
sidio Del  Norte,  St.  Denis  had  loved,  not  without  recip- 
rocity, the  beautiful  daughter  of  the  old  Don.  What 
a  pretty  tale  might  be  made  of  it,  which  would  deserve 
to  be  written  with  a  feather  dropped  from  Cupid's 
wing !  But  when  the  lovers  were  still  hesitating  as  to 
the  course  they  would  pursue,  and  discussing  the  pro- 
priety of  making  a  full  disclosure  to  him  who,  in  the 
shape  of  a  father,  was  the  arbiter  of  their  destiny, 
there  arrived  twenty-five  men,  sent  by  Don  Gaspardo 
Anaya,  the  governor  of  Caouis,  with  secret  instructions, 
which  were  soon  made  manifest,  to  the  dismay  of  the 
lovers ;  for  these  emissaries  seized  St.  Denis  and  his 
friend  Jallot,  and  conveyed  them  to  Caouis,  where  they 


170  THE  LOVES  OF  ST.  DENIS 

were  detained  in  prison  until  the  beginning  of  1715. 
From  this  place  of  confinement,  St.  Denis,  fearing  that 
the  hostility  evinced  towards  him  might  be  extended 
to  the  rest  of  his  companions,  ordered  them  to  return 
speedily  to  Natchitoches. 

Ye  Bulwers  of  America,  I  invite  your  attention ! 
Here  history  presents  you  with  the  ready-made  ground- 
work for  whatever  superstructure  and  embellishments 
you  may  choose  to  imagine  for  the  amusement  of  your 
readers. 

Don  Gaspardo  Anaya  had  been  the  unsuccessful  suitor 
of  Dona  Maria,  the  daughter  of  Villescas.  What  must 
have  been  his  rage,  when  he  was  informed  by  his  spies 
that  the  new-comer,  the  brilliant  Frenchman,  had  tri- 
umphed, where  he  had  failed !  But  now  he  had  that 
hated  rival  in  his  clutches,  and  he  was  omnipotent,  and 
if  the  stranger  died  in  the  dungeon  of  Caouis,  who,  in 
these  distant  and  rugged  mountains,  would  bring  him, 
the  governor,  to  an  account  ?  Perilous  indeed  was  the 
situation  of  St.  Denis,  and  heavy  must  have  been  his 
thoughts  in  his  solitary  confinement !  But  what  must 
have  been  his  indignation  when,  one  day,  Anaya  de- 
scended into  his  dark  cell,  and  told  him  that  he  should 
be  set  free  on  condition  that  he  withdrew  his  plighted 
faith  to  the  daughter  of  Villescas !  How  swelled  the 
loyal  heart  of  the  captive  at  this  base  proposal !  He 
vouchsafed  no  answer,  but  he  gave  his  oppressor  such  a 
look  as  made  him  stagger  back  and  retreat  with  as  much 
precipitation  as  if  the  hand  of  immediate  punishment 
had  been  lifted  up  against  him. 

For  six  months,  St.  Denis  was  thus  detained  prisoner, 
and  the  only  consideration  which  saved  his  life  was  the 
hope,  on*  the  part  of  Anaya,  that  prolonged  sufferings 
would  drive  his  victim  to  comply  with  his  request.  At 
the  same  time,  he  repeatedly  sent  secret  messengers  to 


AND  DONNA  MARIA.  171 

Dona  Maria,  whose  mission  was  to  inform  her  that  her 
lover  would  be  put  to  death  if  she  did  not  wed  Anaya. 
But  the  noble  Castilian  maid  invariably  returned  the 
same  answer :  "  Tell  Anaya  that  I  can  not  marry  him  as 
long  as  St.  Denis  lives,  because  St.  Denis  I  love ;  and 
tell  him  that  if  St.  Denis  dies,  this  little  Moorish  dagger, 
which  was  my  mother's  gift,  shall  be  planted,  either  by 
myself  or  my  agent's  hand,  in  the  middle  of  his  dastardly 
heart,  wherever  he  may  be."  This  was  said  with  a 
gentle  voice,  with  a  calm  mien,  as  if  it  had  been  an  or- 
dinary message,  but  with  such  a  gleam  in  the  eye  as  is 
nowhere  to  be  seen  except  in  Spain's  or  Arabia's  daugh- 
ters. The  words,  the  look,  and  the  tone,  were  minutely 
reported  to  Anaya,  and  he  paused ! — and  it  is  well  that 
he  did  so,  and  a  bolder  heart  than  his  would  have  hesi- 
tated ;  he  knew  the  indomitable  spirit  of  his  race — he 
knew  the  old  Cantabrian  blood — and  that  Spain's 
sweetest  doves  will,  when  roused,  dare  the  eagle  to 
mortal  combat ! 

The  Spanish  maid  did  not  remain  inactive,  and  satis- 
fied with  deploring  her  lover's  captivity.  She  dis- 
patched to  Mexico  a  trusty  servant,  such  as  is  only 
found  in  Spanish  households,  one  of  those  menials  that 
never  question  the  will  of  their  lord  or  lady,  dogs  for 
fidelity,  lions  for  courage,  who  will  tear  to  pieces  what- 
ever is  designated  to  them,  if  such  be  the  order  of  their 
masters.  His  mission  was  to  find  out  the  means  of  in- 
forming the  Viceroy  that  a  Frenchman,  a  presumed  spy, 
had  been  for  several  months  in  the  hands  of  the  gov- 
ernor of  Caouis,  who  was  suspected  of  concealing  his 
captive  from  the  knowledge  of  the  higher  authorities,  in 
order  to  tamper  with  his  prisoner  for  a  ransom.  The 
object  of  this  false  information  was  to  excite  the  jealous 
attention  of  the  government,  and  to  withdraw  St.  Denis, 
at  all  risks,  from  the  dangerous  situation  he  was  in. 


172     ST.  DENIS  SENT  PRISONER    TO  THE  CITY  OF  MEXICO. 

This  stratagem  succeeded,  and  much  to  his  astonishment, 
Anaya  received  a  peremptory  order  to  send  his  prisoner 
to  Mexico,  with  a  sure  escort,  and  at  the  peril  of  his 
head,  if  he  failed  ! 

One  morning  St.  Denis  found  himself  suddenly  seated 
on  a  strong,  powerful  horse,  amid  a  detachment  of 
twenty  men,  who  were  evidently  prepared  for  a  long 
journey.  He  asked  whither  he  was  to  be  carried,  and 
was  particularly  inquisitive  about  his  friend  Jallot,  who 
had  been  put  into  a  separate  dungeon,  and  of  whom  he 
had  heard  nothing  since  his  captivity,  but  he  was 
dragged  away  without  any  answer  being  given  to  his 
inquiries.  Seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles  did  he  travel 
without  stopping,  except  it  be  for  such  time  as  was  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  take  a  hurried  rest,  when  the  mag- 
nificent city  of  Mexico  burst  upon  his  sight  in  all  its  im- 
perial splendor.  There,  he  flattered  himself  that  he 
would  obtain  justice,  but  he  soon  experienced  that 
change  of  place  had  been  for  him  no  more  than  a  change 
of  captivity.  Look  at  the  woe-begone  prisoner  in  that 
horrible  dungeon,  where  he  is  chained  to  the  wall  like 
a  malefactor !  His  constitution  is  completely  broken 
down ;  his  body  is  so  emaciated  by  his  long  sufferings, 
and  by  the  want  of  wholesome  food,  that  it  presents  the 
appearance  of  a  skeleton ;  his  long  matted  hair  shrouds 
his  face,  and  his  shaggy  beard  hangs  down  to  his  breast. 
Who  would  have  recognized  the  brilliant  St.  Denis  in 
this  miserable  object,  in  this  hideous-looking,  iron-bound 
felon — a  felon  in  aspect,  if  not  in  reality  ! 

One  day,  an  unusual  stir  was  observed  in  front  of  his 
prison.  The  short,  brief  word  of  command  outside,  the 
clashing  of  arms,  the  heavy  tramping  of  horses,  St. 
Denis  could  distinctly  hear  in  his  dismal  abode.  The 
noise  approached ;  the  doors  of  his  cell  turned  slowly 
on  their  rusty  hinges ;  on  came  the  bustling  and  obse- 


ROMANTIC  RELEASE  FROM  PRISON.  173 

quious  jailer,  ushering  in  an  officer  who  was  escorted 
by  a  file  of  soldiers.  It  was  one  whom  the  Viceroy 
had  ordered  to  examine  into  the  situation  of  all  the 
prisons  of  Mexico,  and  to  make  a  report  on  their  un- 
fortunate tenants.  "Who  have  we  here?"  said  the 
officer,  in  an  abrupt  tone.  "  I,"  exclaimed  St.  Denis, 
starting  to  his  feet,  "  I,  Juchereau  de  St.  Denis,  a  gen- 
tleman by  birth,  a  prisoner  by  oppression,  and  now  a 
suitor  for  justice."  On  hearing  these  words,  the  officer 
started  back  and  looked  wild  with  astonishment ;  then, 
rushing  to  St.  Denis,  and  putting  his  face  close  to  his 
face,  removing  with  his  trembling  hand  the  disheveled 
locks  that  concealed  the  prisoner's  features,  and  scan- 
ning every  lineament  with  a  rapid  but  intense  look,  he 
said,  with  a  quivering  voice,  which,  through  emotion, 
had  sunk  to  a  whisper,  "  You  were  born  in  Canada  ?" 
"  Yes."  "  Educated  in  France,  at  the  Koyal  College  of 
Paris?"  "  Yes."  "  You  left  France  to  seek  your  for- 
tune in  Louisiana  ?"  "  I  did."  "  By  heaven,  jailer,  off 
with  those  accursed  chains !  quick !  set  those  noble 
limbs  free  !"  And  he  threw  himself  sobbing  into  the 
arms  of  the  astonished  St.  Denis,  who  thought  himself 
the  dupe  of  a  dream,  but  who  at  last  recognized  in  his 
liberator  one  of  the  companions  of  his  youth,  his  best 
early  friend,  the  Marquis  de  Larnage,  who,  with  some 
other  young  Frenchmen,  had  entered  into  the  Spanish 
army,  and  who  had  risen  to  be  the  Viceroy's  favorite 
aid-de-camp.  What  a  dramatic  scene !  And  would 
not  this  incident  of  Louisianian  history  be  welcomed  on 
the  stage  by  an  American  audience  ! 

What  a  change  !  Here  we  are  in  the  gorgeous  halls 
of  Montezuma,  where  the  barbaric  splendor  of  the 
Aztec  emperors  has  been  improved  by  the  more  correct 
and  tasteful  application  of  Spanish  magnificence  :  there 
is  a  festival  at  the  palace  of  the  Viceroy : — 


ITi  AFFECTION  OF  THE  VICEROY 

"  The  long  carousal  shakes  the  illumined  hall ; 
Well  speeds  alike  the  banquet  and  the  ball" 

Noble  and  beautiful  dames! — Silk,  brocade,  and  dia- 
monds ! — Gentlemen  of  high  birth — renowned  soldiers 
— glittering  uniforms,  studded  with  stars  and  other  dec- 
orations— breasts  scarred  with  wounds — brains  teem- 
ing with  aspirations — grave  magistrates — sage  council- 
lore — subtle  diplomatists — scheming  heads !  What  sub- 
jects for  observation !  The  walls  are  alive  with  paint- 
ings which  court  the  eye,  or  ornamented  with  mirrors 
which  multiply  the  reflected  beauty  of  the  glorious  pa- 
geantry. Now  and  then,  scions  of  the  greatest  houses 
of  Spain ;  younger  sons,  that  had  been  sent  to  Mexico 
to  better  their  fortunes ;  men  whose  names,  when  pro- 
nounced, sound  like  a  trumpet  inciting  to  heroic  ex- 
ploits, would  make  their  appearance,  and  to  let  them 
pass,  the  crowd  of  brilliant  guests  would  reverentially 
open  their  ranks.  Such  is  the  involuntary  respect  paid, 
mechanically  as  it  were,  to  those  who  carry  round  their 
foreheads  the  agglomerated  rays  derived,  through  the 
magnifying  focus  of  one  thousand  years,  from  the  his- 
torical distinction  of  a  long,  uninterrupted  line  of  illus- 
trious ancestors ! 

Suddenly,  the  large  folding  doors  of  an  inner  apart- 
ment are  thrown  open,  and  the  Viceroy  is  seen  at  table, 
with  a  few  favored  and  envied  guests,  enjoying  the  del- 
icacies of  the  most  gorgeous  banquet.  What  an  accu- 
mulated treasure  of  gold  and  silver,  under  every  form 
that  convivial  imagination  can  fancy,  and  in  the  shape 
of  plates,  dishes,  chandeliers,  and  every  sort  of  admira- 
bly chiseled  vases !  But  who  is  that  noble-looking  cav- 
alier on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  Viceroy  ?  Can  it  be 
St.  Denis,  the  late  tenant  of  a  gloomy  jail  ?  It  is.  Pre- 
sented by  his  friend,  the  aid-de-camp,  to  the  represen- 
tative of  the  Majesty  of  Spain,  to  the  Duke  of  Linares, 


FOR  ST.  DENIS.  175 

he  has  become  such  a  favorite  that  his  daily  and  con- 
stant attendance  is  required  at  court.  Nay,  the  affec- 
tion which  the  Viceroy  had  conceived  for  St.  Denis, 
had  so  grown  upon  that  nobleman,  that  he  had  insisted 
upon  the  young  Frenchman  being  lodged  in  the  palace, 
where  every  favor  was  at  his  command.  The  whole 
city  of  Mexico  had  been  convulsed  with  astonishment 
at  the  unexpected  turn  of  fortune,  which  was  the  lot 
of  the  foreign  adventurer.  Marvelous,  indeed,  and  in- 
explicable did  the  fascination  exercised  by  St.  Denis  on 
the  Viceroy  seem  to  the  multitude  !  Instead  of  attrib- 
uting it,  perhaps  to  its  true  cause,  to  the  congenial 
affinity  of  mind  to  mind,  and  of  heart  to  heart,  they  in- 
dulged in  a  thousand  wild  conjectures.  At  last,  these 
surmises  had  settled  in  the  belief  that  St.  Denis  had 
saved  the  life  of  the  Viceroy,  in  a  nocturnal  adventure. 
It  was  positively  ascertained,  however,  that  St.  Denis, 
a  short  time  after  his  liberation,  passing  in  a  secluded 
street,  heard  the  clashing  of  swords.  Rushing  to  the 
spot  from  which  the  noise  of  conflict  came,  he  saw  a 
man  with  a  mask  on  his  face,  and  with  his  back  to  the 
wall  of  a  house,  who  was  sorely  pressed  by  three  other 
men,  masked  also,  who  were  attacking  him  with  the 
greatest  fury.  St.  Denis  took  side  with  the  weaker 
party,  and  put  to  flight  the  cowardly  assassins.  He 
never  said  to  whom  he  had  rendered  such  an  eminent 
service,  and  if  he  knew — 

"  He  shunned  to  show, 

As  hardly  worth  a  stranger's  care  to  know  ; ' 

If  still  more  prying  such  inquiry  grew, 

His  brow  fell  darker,  and  his  words  more  few." 

His  secret  died  with  him ! 

Amid  all  the  festivities  of  the  vice-regal  court,  St. 
Denis  had  but  one  thought,  one  aspiration,  that  of  re- 
turning to  his  lady  love,  and  to  his  friend  Jallot.  He 


176          TEMPTATION  OF  ST.  DENIS— HE  REMAINS  FIRM. 

had  even  refused  the  most  brilliant  proposals  from  the 
Viceroy,  such  as  a  high  grade  in  the  Spanish  army, 
saying,  "  I  can  serve  but  one  God  and  one  king.  I  am 
a  Frenchman,  and  highly  as  I  esteem  the  Spaniards,  I 
can  not  become  one."  "  But,"  replied  the  Viceroy,  "  you 
are  already  half  a  Spaniard,  for  you  have  confessed  to 
me  that  you  love  a  Spanish  maid."  "  True,"  observed 
St.  Denis,  "  but  it  is  not  certain  that  I  can  marry  her, 
because  I  consider  her  father's  consent  as  doubtful.'1 
"  Well,  then,  accept  my  offers,"  exclaimed  the  Viceroy, 
"  and  I  pledge  my  knightly  word  to  remove  every  ob- 
stacle that  may  be  in  your  way."  St.  Denis  expressed 
his  thanks,  as  one  overwhelmed  with  gratitude  at  such 
kindness,  but  could  not  be  shaken  from  his  determina- 
tion. "  At  least,"  continued  the  Viceroy,  "  do  me  one 
favor.  Do  not  depart  now.  Take  two  months  for  re- 
flection on  what  you  reject.  When  this  delay  shall 
have  expired,  I  will  again  put  this  question  to  you — 
will  you  attach  yourself  to  my  person,  and  transfer  your 
allegiance  from  the  Bourbons  of  France  to  the  Bour- 
bons of  Spain  ?"  The  two  months  rapidly  flew  by,  and 
the  chivalric  St.  Denis  remained  firm  to  his  purpose- 
"  To  lose  such  a  man  as  you  are,"  said  the  Viceroy,  "  is 
a  serious  trial  to%  me,  but  I  admire,  even  in  its  exagge- 
ration, the  sentiment  by  which  you  are  actuated.  Fare- 
well, then,  and  may  God  bless  you  and  yours  forever. 
My  last  hope  is,  that  Dona  Maria  will  induce  you  to 
adopt  New  Spain  for  your  country.  ^With  regard  to 
the  commercial  relations,  which,  in  the  name  of  the 
governor  of  Louisiana,  you  have  asked  me  to  permit 
between  that  province  and  those  of  my  government,  tell 
him  that  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  accede  to  his  propo- 
sitions." i  The  preparations  of  St.  Denis  for  his  depart- 
ure were^not  of  long  duration,  for  the  lady  of  his  heart 
beckoned  to  him  from  the  walls  of  the  Presidio  del 


JALLOT  AND  THE  GOVERNOR  OF  CAOUIS.        177 

Norte.  The  Viceroy  presented  him  with  a  large  sum 
in  gold,  which,  he  graciously  said,  was  intended  to  pay 
his  wedding  expenses.  He  also  sent  him,  for  his  jour- 
ney, a  superb  Andalusian  steed,  ordering  at  the  same 
time  that  he  should  be  escorted  by  an  officer  and  two 
dragoons  from  the  city  of  Mexico  to  Caouis. 

On  the  forced  departure  of  St.  Denis  for  the  city  of 
Mexico,  Jallot  had  been  set  at  liberty,  and  had  ever 
since  remained  at  Caouis  waiting  for  the  decision  of  the 
fate  of  St.  Denis.  He  was  known  to  be  a  physician, 
and  as  he  was  the  only  one  within  a  radius  of  one  hun- 
dred miles,  he  was  soon  in  full  practice.  In  the  course 
of  a  few  months,  he  had  performed  so  many  cures  and 
rendered  so  many  services,  that  he  was  looked  upon  as 
something  almost  supernatural.  One  day,  he  was  sum- 
moned to  the  house  of  the  governor,  Don  Gaspardo 
Anaya,  whither  he  went-  with  such  a  grim  smile  as 
clearly  indicated  that  his  feelings  were  in  a  violent  state 
of  excitement.  He  examined  with  the  most  minute 
care  the  body  of  that  dignitary,  and  on  his  being  asked 
his  opinion  on  the  situation  of  his  patient,  he  went  into 
the  most  luminous  exposition  of  his  disease,  and  de- 
clared that  if  a  certain  operation,  which  he  described 
with  much  apparent  gusto,  was  not  performed,  the  sick 
man  would  certainly  die  within  one  month.  "Well 
then,"  said  the  governor,  "  go  on  with  the  operation,  as 
soon  as  you  please."  "  It  shall  never  please  me,"  cried 
Jallot,  in  a  voice  of  thunder ;  and  shaking  his  fist  at 
the  enemy  of  St.  Denis,  whom,  in  his  turn,  he  had  now 
in  his  power,  he  doggedly  withdrew  from  the  house  of 
the  infuriated  governor.  Remonstrances,  entreaties, 
large  offerings  of  money,  threats,  could  not  bring  him 
back.  At  last,  the  governor  swore  that  he  would  hang 
Jallot,  and  sent  some  soldiers  to  arrest  him.  But 
the  people,  who  loved  Jallot,  and  feared  being  deprived 


178    RETURN  OF  ST.  DENIS  TO  THE  PRESIDIO  DEL  NORTE. 

of  his  invaluable  services,  rose  upon  the  soldiery,  beat 
them  off,  and  proclaimed  that  they  would  hang  the  gov- 
ernor himself,  if  he  persisted  in  his  intention  of  hanging 
Jallot.  Matters  were  in  this  ticklish  situation,  when  St. 
Denis  returned  to  Caouis. 

In  company  with  his  friend  Jallot,  who  was  almost 
distracted  with  joy  at  his  safe  return,  St.  Denis  imme- 
diately waited  upon  the  governor,  to  whom  he  commu- 
nicated a  letter  patent,  by  which  the  Viceroy  gave  au- 
thority to  St.  Denis  to  inflict  upon  Anaya,  for  his  abuse 
of  power,  any  punishment  which  he  might  think  proper, 
provided  it  stopped  short  of  death.  The  terror  of  the 
governor  may  easily  be  conceived,  but  after  enjoying 
his  enemy's  confusion  for  a  short  time,  St.  Denis  tore  to 
pieces  the  Viceroy's  letter,  and  retired,  leaving  the  cul- 
prit, whom  he  despised,  to  the  castigation  of  heaven 
and  to  the  stings  of  his  own  conscience.  He  did  more : 
he  had  the  generosity  to  request  Jallot  to  perform  the 
operation  which  this  worthy  had  hitherto  so  obstinately 
refused  to  do.  The  surgeon,  who  was  mollified  by  his 
friend's  return,  consented,  not  however  without  terrific 
grumblings,  to  use  his  surgical  skill  to  relieve  the  bed- 
ridden governor,  and  he  admirably  succeeded  in  the 
diflicult  operation  upon  which  the  fate  of  his  patient 
depended.  But  he  peremptorily  and  contemptuously 
refused  the  fee  that  was  tendered  him,  and  informed 
the  governor,  face  to  face,  and  with  his  roughest  tone, 
that  he  deserved  no  remuneration  for  the  cure,  because 
he  had  saved  his  life  merely  out  of  spite,  and  under  the 
firm  conviction  that  he  would  ere  long  die  on  the  gal- 
lows. 

Let  us  now  rapidly  proceed  with  St.  Denis  from 
Caouis  to  the  Presidio  del  Norte.  There  he  found  a 
great  change ; — not  that  the  lady  of  his  love  was  not 
as  true  and  as  beautiful  as  ever,  but  the  place  looked 


EMIGRATION  OF  THE  INDIANS  FROM  THE  PRESIDIO.       179 

lonesome  and  desolate.  The  five  Indian  villages  which 
formed  a  sort  of  belt  round  the  Presidio,  at  a  short  dis- 
tance from  its  walls,  were  deserted.  A  gloomy  cloud 
had  settled  over  the  spot  which  he  had  known  so  brisk 
and  thriving : — and  Villescas  told  him,  with  the  great- 
est consternation,  that  the  Indians  had  withdrawn  on 
account  of  their  having  been  molested  by  the  Span- 
iards, who  used  to  go  to  their  villages,  and  there  com- 
mit every  sort  of  outrage ;  that  he  confessed  he  was 
much  to  be  blamed  for  not  having  checked  sooner  the 
disorderly  practices  of  his  subordinates ;  and  that  if  the 
Indians  persisted  in  their  intention  of  removing  away 
to  distant  lands,  the  government  at  Mexico,  whose  set- 
tled policy  it  was  to  conciliate  the  frontier  Indians, 
would  be  informed  of  what  had  happened,  and  would 
certainly  visit  him  with  punishment  for  official  miscon- 
duct, negligence  or  dereliction  of  duty.  "  I  will  run 
after  the  fugitives,"  exclaimed  St.  Denis,  "  and  use  my 
best  efforts  to  bring  them  back."  "  Do  so,"  replied  the 
old  man,  "  and  if  you  succeed,  there  is  nothing  in  my 
power,  which  I  can  refuse  you."  On  hearing  these 
words,  which  made  his  heart  thrill,  as  it  were  with  an 
electric  shock,  St.  Denis  vaulted  on  his  good  Andalu- 
sian  steed,  and  started  full  speed  in  the  direction  the 
Indians  had  taken.  He  was  followed,  far  behind,  by 
Jallot,  who  came  trotting  along,  as  fast  as  he  could,  on 
a  restive,  capricious,  ill-looking  little  animal,  for  whom 
he  had  perversely  conceived  the  greatest  affection,  per- 
haps on  account  of  his  bad  qualities. 

The  Indians,  encumbered  with  women  and  children, 
had  been  progressing  very  slowly,  with  the  heavy  bag- 
gage they  were  carrying  with  them,  and  St.  Denis  had 
not  traveled  long  before  he  discovered  from  the  top  of 
a  hill,  the  moving  train ;  he  waved  a  white  flag  and  re- 
doubled his  speed ;  the  Indians  stopped  and  tarried  for 


180  ST.  DENIS'  SPEECH  TO  THE  INDIANS. 

his  approach.  When  he  came  up  to  them,  they  formed 
a  dense  circle  around  him,  and  silently  waited  for  his 
communication.  "  My  friends !"  said  St.  Denis,  "  I  am 
sent  by  the  governor  of  the  Presidio  del  Norte,  to  tell 
you  that  he  pleads  guilty  to  his  red  children  ;  he  con- 
fesses that  you  have  been  long  laboring  under  griev- 
ances which  he  neglected  to  redress,  and  that  you  have 
been  frequently  oppressed  by  those  whom  it  was  his 
duty  to  keep  in  the  straight  path  of  rectitude.  This  is 
a  frank  avowal,  as  you  see.  With  regard  to  the  gov- 
ernor himself,  you  know  that  he  has  always  been  kind 
and  upright,  and  that,  personally  and  intentionally,  he 
has  never  wronged  any  one  of  you :  the  old  chief  has  been 
too  weak  with  his  own  people — that  is  all  you  can  say 
against  him.  But  now,  he  pledges  his  faith  that  no 
Spaniard  shall  be  allowed  to  set  his  foot  in  your  vil- 
lages without  your  express  consent,  and  that  every  sort 
of  protection  which  you  may  claim  shall  be  extended 
over  your  tribe.  Do  not,  therefore,  be  obstinate,  my 
friends,  and  do  not  keep  shut  the  gates  of  your  hearts, 
when  the  pale-faced  chief,  with  his  gray  hairs,  knocks 
for  admittance,  but  let  his  words  of  repentance  fall 
upon  your  souls,  like  a  refreshing  dew,  and  revive  your 
drooping  attachment  for  him.  Do  not  give  up  your 
hereditary  hunting-grounds,  the  cemeteries  of  your  fore- 
fathers, and  your  ancestral  villages,  with  rash  precip- 
itancy. Whither  are  you  going?  Your  native  soil 
does  not  stick  to  your  feet,  and  it  is  the  only  soil  which 
is  always  pleasant ;  and  the  wheat  which  grows  upon 
it,  is  the  only  gram  that  will  give  you  tasteful  bread  ; 
and  the  sun  which  shines  upon  it,  is  the  only  sun  whose 
rays  do  not  scorch ;  and  the  refreshing  showers  which 
fall  upon  its  bosom  would  elsewhere  be  impure  and 
brackish  water.  You  do  not  know  what  bitter  weeds 
grow  in  the  path  of  the  stranger !  You  do  not  know 


HE  PREVAILS  ON  THEM  TO  RETURN.  181 

how  heavily  the  air  he  breathes  weighs  on  his  lungs  in 
distant  lands !  And  what  distant  lands  will  you  be 
permitted  to  occupy,  without  fighting  desperate  battles 
with  the  nations  upon  whose  territory  you  will  have 
trespassed  ?  When  you  will  be  no  longer  protected  by 
the  Spaniards,  how  will  you  resist  the  incessant  attacks 
of  the  ferocious  Comanches,  who  carry  so  far  and  wide 
their  predatory  expeditions?  Thus,  my  friends,  the 
evils  you  are  running  to  are  certain,  and  behind  them, 
lie  concealed  in  ambush  still  greater  ones,  which  the 
keenest  eye  among  you  can  not  detect.  But  what  have 
you  to  fear,  if  you  return  to  your  deserted  villages  ? 
There,  it  is  true,  you  will  meet  some  old  evils,  but  you 
are  accustomed  to  them.  That  is  one  advantage ;  and, 
besides,  you  are  given  the  assurance  that  to  many  of 
them  a  remedy  will  be  applied.  Why  not  make  the 
experiment,  and  see  how  it  will  work  ?  But  if  you 
persist  in  going  away,  and  if  you  fare  for  the  worse, 
your  situation  will  be  irretrievable.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  return,  as  I  advise  you,  should  the  governor 
of  the  Presidio  not  keep  his  word,  and  should  you  not 
be  satisfied,  it  will  always  be  time  enough  to  resume 
your  desperate  enterprise  of  emigration." 

This  is  the  substance  of  what  St.  Denis  told  his  red 
auditory,  and  the  Indians,  who,  perhaps,  were  beginning 
to  regret  the  step  they  had  taken,  spontaneously 
marched  back,  with  St.  Denis  riding  triumphantly  at 
their  head.  They  soon  met  Jallot,  jogging  along  with 
impatience,  cursing  and  spurring  his  favorite  with  des- 
perate energy.  When  he  saw  that  St.  Denis,  about 
whom  he  was  extremely  uneasy,  was  safe,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded so  well  in  his  embassy,  he  gave  a  shout  which 
made  the  welkin  ring  ;  but  he  was  so  astonished  at  his 
own  doing,  and  at  the  unusual  sound  which  had  so 
strangely  issued  from  his  throat,  that  he  looked  round 


182  MARRIAGE  OF  ST.  DENIS. 

like  a  man  who  was  not  very  sure  of  his  own  identity. 
Those  who  knew  him  well  remained  convinced  that  this 
shout  had  settled  in  his  mind  as  the  most  extraordinary 
event  of  his  life. 

Now  all  is  joy  again  at  the  Presidio,  and  the  smile 
of  contentment  has  lighted  up  the  face  of  the  country 
for  miles  around.  From  the  Spanish  battlements  ban- 
ners wave  gayly,  the  cannons  crack  their  sides  with 
innocent  roaring,  muskets  are  discharged  in  every  di- 
rection, but  from  their  tubes  there  do  not  sally  any 
murderous  balls ;  the  whole  population,  white  and  red, 
is  dressed  in  its  best  apparel ;  whole  sheep,  oxen,  and 
buffaloes  are  roasted  in  the  Homeric  style;  immense 
tables  are  spread  in  halls,  bowei-s,  and  under  shady 
trees ;  whole  casks  of  Spanish  wines  and  of  the  Mexican 
pulque  are  broached ;  the  milk  and  honey  of  the  land 
flow  with  unrestrained  abundance ;  the  Indians  shout, 
dance,  and  cut  every  sort  of  antics.  Well  may  all  re- 
joice, for  it  is  the  wedding-day  of  St.  Denis  and  Dona 
Maria !  Here  the  long  and  beautiful  procession  which 
is  slowly  moving  to  the  rustic  parochial  church,  might 
"be  described  with  some  effect,  but  I'  leave  the  task  to 
future  novel  writers.  I  now  dismiss  this  episode,  and 
only  regret  that  I  have  not  done  it  the  justice  which  it 
deserves.  Let  me  add,  however,  that,  after  an  absence 
of  two  years,  St.  Denis,  having  returned  to  Mobile  with 
Don  Juan  de  Villescas,  the  uncle  of  his  wife,  was  ap- 
pointed, in  reward  for  the  discharge  of  his  perilous  mis- 
sion, a  captain  in  the  French  army. 

On  the  recommendation  of  Crozat,  another  undertak- 
ing was  made  to  open  commercial  relations  with  the 
Spanish  provinces  of  Mexico.  Three  Canadians,  Delery, 
Lafreni&re  and  Beaujeu,  were  intrusted  with  a  consid- 
erable amount  of  merchandise,  went  up  Red  River,  and 
endeavored  to  reach  the  province  of  Nuevo  Leon, 


ARRIVAL  OF  DE  L'EPINAY.  183 

through  Texas ; — but  this  attempt  was  as  unsuccessful 
as  the  one  made  by  St.  Denis. 

On  the  9th  of  March,  1717,  three  ships  belonging  to 
Crozat  arrived  with  three  companies  of  infantry  and 
fifty  colonists,  with  De  1'Epinay,  the  new  governor,  and 
Hubert,  the  king's  commissary.  L'Epinay  brought  to 
Bienville  the  decoration  of  the  cross  of  St.  Louis,  and  a 
royal  patent,  conceding  to  him,  by  mean  tenure  in  soc- 
cage,  Horn  Island,  on  the  coast  of  the  present  State  of 
Alabama.  Bienville  had  demanded  in  vain  that  it  be 
erected  in  his  favor  into  a  noble  fief. 

Hardly  had  L'Epinay  landed,  when  he  disagreed  with 
Bienville,  and  the  colony  was  again  distracted  by  two 
factions,  with  L'Epinay  on  one  side  and  Bienville  on 
the  other.  There  were  not  at  that  time  in  Louisiana 
more  than  seven  hundred  souls,  including  the  military ; 
and  thus  far,  the  efforts  of  Crozat  to  increase  the  popu- 
lation had  proved  miserably  abortive.  In  vain  had  his 
agents  resorted  to  every  means  in  their  power,  to  trade 
with  the  Spanish  provinces,  either  by  land  or  by  sea, 
either  legally  or  illegally ;•— several  millions'  worth  of 
merchandise  which  he  had  sent  to  Louisiana,  with  the 
hope  of  their  finding  their  way  to  Mexico,  had  been 
lost  for  want  of  a  market.  In  vain  also  had  expensive 
researches  been  made  for  mines  and  pearl  fisheries. 
As  to  the  trading  in  furs  with  the  Indians,  it  hardly 
repaid  the  cost  of  keeping  factories  among  them.  Thus, 
all  the  schemes  of  Crozat  had  failed.  The  miserable 
European  population,  scattered  over  Louisiana,  was  op- 
posed to  his  monopoly,  and  contributed,  as  much  as 
they  could,  to  defeat  his  plans.  As  to  the  officers,  they 
were  too  much  engrossed  by  their  own  interest  and  too 
intent  upon  their  daily  quarrels,  to  mind  any  thing  else. 
There  was  but  one  thing  which,  to  the  despairing  Cro- 


184  CROZAT  SURRENDERS  HIS  CHARTER. 

zat,  seemed  destined  to  thrive  in  Louisiana — that  was, 
the  spirit  of  discord. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  August,  1T17,  Cro- 
zat, finding  that  under  the  new  governor,  L'Epinay, 
things  were  likely  to  move  as  lamely  as  before,  ad- 
dressed to  the  king  a  petition,  in  which  he  informed  his 
Majesty,  that  his  strength  was  not  equal  to  the  enter- 
prise he  had  undertaken,  and  that  he  felt  himself  rap- 
idly sinking  under  the  weight  which  rested  on  his  shoul- 
ders, and  from  which  he  begged  his  Majesty  to  relieve 
him.  On  the  13th  of  the  same  month,  the  Prince  of 
Bourbon  and  Marshal  D'Estr^es  accepted,  in  the  name 
of  the  king,  Crozat's  proposition  to  give  up  the  charter 
which  he  had  obtained  under  the  preceding  reign. 

Against  his  adverse  fate  Crozat  had  struggled  for 
five  years,  but  his  efforts  had  been  gradually  slackening, 
in  proportion  with  the  declining  health  of  his  daughter. 
The  cause  of  his  gigantic  enterprise  had  not  escaped  her 
penetration,  and  she  had  even  extorted  from  him  a  full 
confession  on  the  subject.  In  the  first  two  years  of  her 
father's  quasi  sovereignty  over  Louisiana,  she  had  par- 
ticipated in  the  excitement  of  the  paternal  breast,  and 
had  been  buoyed  up  by  hope.  But  although  her  father 
tried,  with  the  utmost  care,  to  conceal  from  her  the  ill 
success  of  his  operations,  she  soon  discovered  enough  to 
sink  her  down  to  a  degree  of  despair,  sufficient  to  un- 
dermine in  her,  slowly  but  surely,  the  frail  foundations 
of  life ;  and  when  Crozat,  losing  all  courage,  abandoned 
to  the  tossing  waves  of  adversity  the  ship  in  which  he 
had  embarked  the  fortune  of  his  house,  his  daughter 
could  hardly  be  called  a  being  of  this  world.  On  the 
very  day  that  he  had  resigned  the  charter  on  which 
reposed  such  ambitious  hopes,  and  had  come  back,  bro- 
ken-hearted, to  his  desolate  home,  he  was  imprinting  a 
on  his  daughter's  pale  forehead,  and  pressing  her 


DEATH  OF  HIS  DAUGHTER.  185 

attenuated  hands  within  his  convulsive  ones,  when  her 
soul  suddenly  disengaged  itself  from  her  body,  carrying 
away  the  last  paternal  embrace  to  the  foot  of  the  Al- 
mighty's throne. 

Crozat  laid  her  gently  back  on  the  pillow  from 
which  she  had  half  risen,  smoothed  her  clothes,  joined 
her  fingers  as  it  were  in  prayer,  and  sleeked  her  hair 
with  the  palm  of  his  hands,  behaving  apparently  with 
the  greatest  composure.  Not  a  sound  of  complaint,  not 
a  shriek  of  anguish  was  heard  from  him :  his  breast  did 
not  become  convulsed  with  sobs  ;  not  a  muscle  moved 
in  his  face.  He  looked  as  if  he  had  been  changed  into 
a  statue  of  stone :  his  rigid  limbs  seemed  to  move  au- 
tomaton-like ;  his  eyeballs  became  fixed  in  their  sockets, 
and  his  eyelids  lost  their  power  of  contraction.  Calmly, 
but  with  an  unearthly  voice,  he  gave  all  the  necessary 
orders  for  the  funeral  of  his  daughter,  and  even  went 
into  the  examination  of  the  most  minute  details  of  these 
melancholy  preparations.  Those  who  saw  him,  said 
that  he  looked  like  a  dead  man  performing  with  uncon- 
scious regularity  all  the  functions  of  life.  It  was  so 
appalling,  that  his  servants  and  the  few  attending 
friends  who  had  remained  attached  to  his  falling  for- 
tune, receded  with  involuntary  shudder  from  his  ap- 
proach, and  from  the  touch  of  his  hand;  it  was  so  icy 
cold  !  At  last  the  gloomy  procession  reached  the  sol- 
emn place  of  repose.  The  poor  father  had  followed  it 
on  foot,  with  his  hand  resting  on  his  daughter's  coffin, 
as  if  afraid  that  what  remained  of  the  being  he  had 
loved  so  ardently  might  flee  away  from  him.  When 
the  tomb  was  sealed,  he  waved  away  the  crowd.  They 
dared  not  disobey  when  such  grief  spoke,  and  Crozat 
remained  alone.  For  a  while  he  stood  staring,  as  in  a 
trance,  at  his  daughter's  tomb :  then,  a  slight  twitch  of 
the  muscles  of  the  face,  and  a  convulsive  quiver  of  the 


186  CROZATS  DEATH— CONCLUSION. 

lips  might  have  been  seen.  Sensibility  had  returned ! 
He  sunk  on  his  knees,  and  from  those  eyes,  so  long  dry, 
there  descended,  as  from  a  thunder-cloud,  a  big  heavy 
drop,  on  the  cold  sepulchral  marble.  It  was  but  one 
solitary  tear,  the  condensed  essence  of  such  grief  as  the 
human  body  can  not  bear ;  and  as  this  pearly  fragment 
of  the  dew  of  mortal  agony  fell  down  on  the  daughter's 
sepulchre,  the  soul  of  the  father  took  its  flight  to  heaven, 
Crozat  was  no  more ! 

"  My  task  is  done — my  song  hath  ceased — my  theme 

Has  died  into  an  echo :  it  is  fit 

The  spell  should  break  of  this  protracted  dream — 

The  torch  shall  be  extinguished  which  hath  lit 

My  midnight  lamp — and  what  is  writ,  is  writ, — 

Would  it  were  worthier  1    But  I  am  not  now 

That  which  I  have  been — and  my  visions  flit 

Less  palpably  before  me — and  the  glow, 
Which  in  my  spirit  dwelt,  is  fluttering,  faint  and  low." 

"  Farewell !  a  word  that  must  be,  and  hath  been — 
A  sound  which  makes  us  linger — yet — farewell  1" 


NOTE. — Crozat  died  in  1738,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three.  He  had  sev- 
eral sons  and  one  daughter,  Marie  Anne  Crozat,  who  married  Le  Comte 
LYEvreux.  I  hope  I  shall  be  forgiven  for  having  slightly  deviated  from 
historical  truth  in  the  preceding  pages  with  regard  to  particulars  which  I 
deemed  of  no  importance.  For  instance,  I  changed  the  name  of  Crozat's 
daughter.  Why  ?  Perhaps  it  was  owing  to  some  capricious  whim — 
perhaps  there  is  to  me  some  spell  in  the  name  of  Andrea. 


LOUISIANA; 


A    FRENCH    COLONY, 


EERUM    COGXOSCERE    CAUSAS. 


SECOND  SERIES  OF  LECTURES. 


PREFACE 

TO    THE    SECOND    SERIES. 


THE  success  if  my  "  Romance  of  the  History  of  Louisiana," 
from  the  discovery  of  that  country  by  Soto,  to  the  surrender 
by  Crozat  of  the  charter  which  he  had  obtained  from  Louis 
the  XlVth,  in  relation  to  that  French  Colony,  has  been  such, 
that  I  deem  it  my  duty  toward  my  patrons  to  resume  my  pen, 
and  to  present  the  following  work  to  their  kind  and  friendly 
regard.  When  I  wrote  the  preceding  Lectures,  I  said,  while  I 
mentally  addressed  the  public : 

"Right,  I  note,  most  mighty  souveraine, 

That  all  this  famous  antique  history 

Of  some  th'  aboundance  of  an  idle  braine 

Will  judged  be,  and  painted  forgery, 

Rather  than  matter  of  just  memory." 

SPENSEK.    Faerie  Queene. 

Nor  was  I  mistaken : — for  I  was  informed  that  many  had 
taken  for  the  invention  of  the  brain  what  was  but  historical 
truth  set  in  a  gilded  frame,  when,  to  use  the  expressions  of 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  I  had  taken  but  insignificant  liberties 
with  facts,  to  interest  my  readers,  and  make  my  narration 
more  delightful,  in  imitation  of  the  painter  who,  though  his 
work  is  called  history  painting,  gives  in  reality  a  poetical 
representation  of  facts.  The  reader  will  easily  perceive,  that 
in  the  present  production,  I  have  been  more  sparing  of  embel- 
lishments, although  "  I  well  noted,  with  that  worthy  gentle- 


190  PREPACK 

man,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,"  as  Raleigh  says  in  his  history  of 
the  world,  "  that  historians  do  borrow  of  poets  not  only  much 
of  their  ornament,  but  somewhat  of  their  substance." 

Such  is  not  the  case,  on  this  occasion,  and  I  can  safely  de- 
clare that  the  substance  of  this  work,  embracing  the  period 
from  1717  to  1743,  when  Bienville,  who,  with  Iberville,  had 
been  the  founder  of  the  colony,  left  it  forever,  rests  on  such 
evidence  as  would  be  received  in  a  court  of  justice,  and  that 
what  I  have  borrowed  of  the  poet  for  the  benefit  of  the  histo- 
rian, is  hardly  equivalent  to  the  delicately  wrought  drapery 
^hich  even  the  Sculptor  would  deem  necessary,  as  a  graceful 
appendage  to  the  nakedness  of  the  statue  of  truth. 

NOTE. — The  sea-fight  which  opens  the  Second  Lecture  in  the  Ro- 
mance of  the  History  of  Louisiana,  was  supposed  to  be  fictitious,  it  being 
deemed  impossible  that  a  French  vessel  should  have  beaten  three  En- 
glish ships  of  superior  force.  This  fact,  however,  is  related  by  Father 
Charlevoix ;  and  manuscripts  copied  from  the  archives  of  the  department 
of  marine  in  France,  and  now  deposited  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
State  at  Baton  Rouge,  will  convince  the  incredulous  that  the  author  has 
not  drawn  upon  his  imagination. 


LOUISIANA: 


HISTORY  AS  A  FRENCH  COLONY, 


SECOND  SERIES  OF  LECTURES. 


FIRST  LECTURE. 

CREATION  OF  A  ROYAL  BANK  AND  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  COMPANY — EFFECTS  PRO- 
DUCED IN  FRANCE  BY  THOSE  INSTITUTIONS — WILD  HOPES  ENTERTAINED  FROM  THK 
COLONIZATION  OF  LOUISIANA — ITS  TWOFOLD  AND  OPPOSITE  DESCRIPTION — HISTORY 
OF  LAW  FROM  HIS  BlRTH  TO  HIS  DEATH. 

NOTHING  could  be  more  insignificant  than  Louisiana 
in  the  estimation  of  her  European  rulers,  when  Crozat's 
charter  became  one  of  those  things  that  are  among  the 
past.  But  by  one  of  those  rapid  transitions  so  common 
in  human  affairs,  she  was  suddenly  destined  to  exercise 
a  wonderful  influence  over  the  powerful  kingdom  of 
which  she  was  the  weak  progeny.  In  her  very  name 
there  was  soon  to  be  discovered  something  as  dazzling 
to  the  imagination,  as  the  richest  diamond  is  to  the  eye 
of  woman.  A  subtle  conjurer  arose,  who,  waving  aloft 
his  magical  wand,  and  using  that  name  then  so  ob- 
scure, to  give  more  force  to  his  incantations,  prepared 
for  France  an  intoxicating  draught  which  made  her 
reel  as  in  drunkenness,  and  nearly  prostrated  her  to  the 
ground,  despite  of  her  ever-reviving  energies.  The  star 
of  John  Law  had  risen  on  the  horizon  of  France :  and 
the  Company  of  the  Indies,  the  great  Mississippi  scheme, 


192  CREATION  OF  THE  WESTERN  COMPANY. 

of  which  he  was  the  chief  projector,  the  destinies  of 
France  and  of  Louisiana,  the  expected  results  of  such 
commerce  as  the  world  had  never  known  before,  the 
reports  of  hidden  treasures  concealed,  in  inexhaustible 
mines  of  silver  and  gold,  were  to  be  indissolubly  united 
in  the  annals  of  history  and  of  folly. 

On  the  13th  of  August,  IV  1*7,  the  situation  of  affairs 
in  the  colony  of  Louisiana  having  been  brought  before 
the  Council  of  State  at  Versailles,  it  was  decided  by 
that  body,  presided  over  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
Regent  of  France  during  the  minority  of  Louis  the 
XVth,  that,  "for  many  essential  reasons  which  it 
would  be  superfluous  to  recite,  because  they  were 
known  to  every  one,  it  was  to  the  interest  of  France 
that  the  colony  of  Louisiana  should  be  fostered  and 
preserved." — Such  were  the  terms  of  that  decree,  which 
went  on  saying,  that,  "  whereas  it  had  been  demon- 
strated, in  the  case  of  Crozat,  that  the  colonization  of 
the  province  of  Louisiana  was  an  undertaking  beyond 
the  strength  of  any  private  individual :  and  whereas  this 
undertaking  would  not  become  the  King,  on  account 
of  the  commercial  details  which  were  its  inseparable 
concomitant,  it  was  resolved  that  Louisiana  should  be 
intrusted  to  the  administration  of  a  company."  From 
this  resolution  sprang  the  creation  of  the  Western 
Company,  or  Company  of  the  Indies,  whose  charter  of 
incorporation  was  registered  by  the  parliament  of 
Paris,  on  the  6th  of  September,  171 7. 

Thus  the  monopoly  granted  to  Crozat  ceased,  merely 
to  be  transferred  to  a  Company.  The  government  of 
one  ruler  was  to  be  succeeded  by  an  oligarchy,  and  the 
worst  of  all,  a  commercial  oligarchy,  an  association  of 
cunning  stockjobbers,  of  robbing  directors,  and  of  silly 
dupes  in  the  shape  of  stockholders.  There  were  not 
men  wanting  at  the  time  who  foresaw  that  the  creation 


YOUTH  OF  JOHN  LAW.  193 

of  the  famous  Company  of  the  Indies,  of  which  Law 
was  the  soul,  and  which  became  one  of  the  most  popu- 
lar schemes  that  ever  nourished  in  France,  was  destined 
to  impart  to  the  colonization  of  Louisiana  only  the  short- 
lived appearance  of  galvanic  vitality,  but  that,  ending 
soon  as  all  delusions  do,  it  would,  in  its  collapse  and 
bursting,  be  fatal  to  the  speculators  engaged  in  the  ex- 
periment, and  be  productive  of  the  most  mischievous 
results  to  France.  Some  of  these  readers  of  coming 
events  attempted  in  vain  to  warn  their  fellow-citizens 
against  the  evils  which  they  predicted.  But  the  weak 
voice  of  individual  reprobation  was  drowned  in  the 
loud  acclamation  of  the  multitude.  When  the  current 
of  the  public  mind  runs  impetuously  in  one  direction, 
when  was  it  ever  checked  ?  It  sweeps  furiously  over 
such  obstacles  as  wisdom  or  patriotism  may  interpose, 
and  it  even  derives  fresh  impetus  from  the  very  attempt 
to  arrest  its  course.  % 

Who  was  John  Law,  to  whom  the  use  of  the  name 
of  Louisiana  was  destined  to  give  so  much  celebrity  in 
the  beginning  of  the  18th  century  ?  In  the  romantic 
city  of  Edinburgh,  the  pride  of  Scotland,  he  was  born 
in  1671.  A  checquered  and  a  singularly  varied  life  his 
was  doomed  to  be,  as  checquered  and  varied  as  the 
changeful  appearance  of  those  ever-flitting  clouds  which 
chase  each  other  through  the  fields  of  heaven,  now  as- 
suming fantastic  shapes,  now  dyed  in  splendor  with  the 
morning  or  evening  rays  of  the  sun,  or  black  with  the 
conception  of  coming  storms.  Gay  halls  and  gloomy 
cells  there  are  in  the  palace  of  Holyrood,  within  sight 
of  which  that  obscure  child  was  cradled,  and  of  which 
the  projecting  battlements  so  often  darkened  with  their 
shade  his  curling  locks,  as  he  indulged  in  the  gambols 
of  his  age.  When  in  his  youth  he  strolled  through  that 
antiquated  abode  of  departed  royalty,  and  there  gazed 


19i  BIOGRAPHY  OF  JOHN  LAW. 

with  mixed  feelings  of  admiration  and  awe  at  tlie  hoary 
relics  of  time,  did  any  prophetic  spirit  shadow  forth  to 
him  the  gay  halls  and  gloomy  cells  of  his  future  exist- 
ence, when  he  should  attain  to  manhood  ?  The  boy 
had  in  him  the  seeds  of  exalted  talent  and  over"- wrought 
passion.  Talent  and  passion — those  unruly  steeds 
upon  which,  when  seated,  man  not  unfrequently  speeds 
away  in  a  mad  career,  faster  than  he  chooses,  whither 
he  heeds  not  or  cares  not,  and  often er  for  his  ruin  than 
his  good,  if  he  does  not  check  them  with  the  reins  of 
morality  or  the  curb  of  religion. 

John  Law,  or  Jessamy  Law,  or  Beau  Law,  as  his 
playmates  called  him,  for  he  was  as  handsome  as  a 
mother's  heart  could  wish  him,  was  the  son  of  a  gold- 
smith and  banker.  Did  this  circumstance  have  any  in- 
fluence on  his  future  career,  and  did  he  inherit  his  pas- 
sion for  the  precious  metals  and  for  banking  opera- 
jions  ?  He  was  educated  in  Edinburgh,  and  he  is  said 
to  have  been  no  mean  adept  in  versification,  if  not  in 
poetry.  But  he  soon  intuitively  discovered  that  a 
scribbler's  lot  was  not  very  enviable,  and  following  the 
natural  bent  of  his  genius,  he  became  so  remarkably 
proficient  in  mathematics  that  he  could,  with  the  great- 
est facility,  solve  the  most  difficult  problems  of  that  ab- 
struse science.  He  also  devoted  his  attention  to  the 
study  of  trade  and  manufactures,  and  made  himself 
master  of  the  principles  of  public  and  private  credit. 
He  minutely  investigated  the  theory  and  practice  of 
taxation,  and  all  matters  constituting  the  arcana  of  po- 
litical economy.  Such  were  the  deep  laid  and  solid 
foundations  of  his  future  eminence. 

But  John  Law  was  a  votary  of  pleasure  as  well  as  of 
study,  and  whenever  he  emerged  from  his  closet,  it  was 
to  attend  the  gambling-table,  the  racing-ground,  and  to 
indulge  in  convivial  and  amorous  exploits.  To  some 


FLIGHT  OF  LAW  TO  THE  CONTINENT.  1 95 

men,  excitement  of  some  sort  or  other  is  the  very  breath 
of  life.  It  is  the  air  which  inflates  and  expands  their 
intellectual  lungs.  Without  it,  the  flow  of  their  mind 
would  stagnate.  Such  was  John  Law.  An  orphan  at 
the  age  of  fourteen,  free  from  paternal  control,  and  the 
heir  to  an  ample  fortune,  he  had  within  his  reach  all 
the  means  of  vicious  indulgence,  and  sadly  did  he  avail 
himself  of  them  to  barter  away  the  very  altars  of  his 
household  gods.  In  1694,  goaded  on  by  the  desire  of 
extending  his  sphere  of  enjoyments,  he  paid  a  visit  to 
London,  that  great  center  of  attraction,  where  his  wit, 
his  graces,  his  manly  beauty,  his  numerous  attainments, 
gained  him  admittance  into  the  best  society.  There, 
however,  his  profusions  of  every  sort,  his  love  for  deep 
play,  and  his  gallantries,  soon  rid  him  of  his  patrimonial 
lands  of  Lauriston  and  Randleston.  Their  broad  acres 
were  converted  into  guineas  which  melted  away  in  the 
hands  of  prodigality,  and  thus,  in  early  life,  through  his 
own  folly,  John  Law  stands  before  us  a  bankrupt ! 

That  bankrupt  was  also  an  adulterer,  and  the  ac- 
knowledged paramour  of  a  Mrs.  Lawrence.  That  in- 
trigue brought  him  into  collision  with  a  Mr.  Wilson, 
whom  he  killed  in  a  duel.  Tried  for  murder,  he  was 
found  guilty,  sentenced  to  death,  and  pardoned  by  the 
crown.  But  an  appeal  was  taken  by  a  brother  of  the 
deceased,  and  the  appeal  was  pending  before  the  King's 
Bench,  when  Law,  not  deeming  it  prudent  t/5  await  the 
result,  escaped  from  his  prison,  and  fled  to  the  continent. 
Law  was  then  twenty-three  years  of  age.  A  bankrupt^ 
an  adulterer,  a  murderer,  and  an  exiled  outlaw !  If  to 
feel  is  to  live,  Law  had  thus  gone  through  an  intensity 
and  variety  of  feelings,  which,  in  the  spring  of  youth, 
must  have  made  his  soul  and  mind  as  gray  with  age,  as 
if  over  them  a  century  had  passed. 

To  Holland,  Law  retired  for  an  asylum : — he  could  not 


196  LAW'S  RETURN  TO  EDINBURGH. 

have  made  a  choice  more  congenial  to  his  tastes,  and  no 
place  in  Europe  could  afford  more  facilities  to  his  favor- 
ite investigations  on  trade,  finances,  public  credit,  and 
political  economy,  than  that  country,  which,  of  all 
others,  was  peculiarly  indebted  to  them  for  its  national 
importance,  and  even  for  its  existence.  During  his  resi- 
dence there,  he  took  care  to  improve  every  opportunity 
to  make  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  consti- 
tution and  the  practical  operation  of  the  Bank  of  Am- 
sterdam. 

John  Law  was  not  the  man,  even  in  a  foreign  coun- 
try, to  remain  long  without  friends  or  protectors,  and 
he  soon  contrived  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  British 
Resident  in  Holland,  of  whom  he  became  the  secretary. 
But  the  phlegmatic  temperament  of  the  Dutch  not  pre- 
senting him  with  the  materials  which  he  Avished  for  the 
accomplishment  of  such  schemes  as  were  ripening  in  his 
brain,  and  having  received  the  assurance  that  he  had  no 
longer  any  thing  to  fear  on  account  of  the  death  of 
Wilson,  he  returned  to  Edinburgh  in  1700,  and  in  the 
following  year  he  published  a  pamphlet  under  this  title : 
"  Proposals  and  Reasons  for  establishing  a  Council  of 
Trade."  The  proverbial  prudence  of  the  Scotch  re- 
ceived this  work  with  coldness.  Not  discouraged  by 
this  failure,  Law  showed  the  remarkable  aptitude  which 
he  had  to  possess  himself  of  the  favor  of  all  those  whom 
he  thought  *proper  to  propitiate,  and  gained  the  sup- 
port of  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  his  sons,  the  Marquis  of 
Lorn  and  Lord  Archibald  Campbell,  the  Marquis  of 
Tweeddale,  and  other  persons  of  rank  and  distinction. 

Under  their  patronage,  he  presented  to  the  Scottish 
parliament,  in  1705,  a  plan  for  removing  the  difficulties 
under  which  the  kingdom  had  then  been  suffering  from 
the  scarcity  of  money  and  from  the  stoppage  of  pay- 
ments by  the  bank ;  and  in  illustration  of  his  views  on 


HIS  SCHEME  OF  A  BANK.  197 

that  subject,  he  gave  publicity  to  another  work,  enti- 
tled "Money  and  Trade  considered,  with  a  proposal 
for  supplying  the  nation  with  money."  What  could  be 
more  tempting !  and  what  a  pity  that  this  grand  pro- 
jector did  not  live  in  this  projecting  age  of  ours !  Like 
other  men,  he  came  too  soon. 

The  proposal  of  Law,  says  one  of  his  biographers, 
was  that  commissioners,  created  by  an  act  of  parlia- 
ment, and  remaining  under  their  control,  should  be  em- 
powered to  issue  notes,  either  in  the  way  of  loan  at  or 
dinary  interest,  upon  landed  security,  provided  the  debt 
should  not  exceed  half,  or  at  the  most,  two  thirds  of  the 
value  of  the  lands,  or  upon  land  pledges,  redeemable 
within  a  certain  period,  to  the  full  value  of  the  land : — 
or  lastly,  upon  irredeemable  sales  to  the  amount  of  the 
price  agreed  upon.  Paper  money  thus  issued  would, 
he  conceived,  be  equal  in  value  to  gold  and  silver 
coin  of  the  same  denomination,  and  might  even  be  pre- 
ferred to  those  metals,  as  not  being,  like  them,  liable  to 
fall  in  value.  But  this  scheme,  though  powerfully  sup- 
ported by  the  court  party,  and  by  the  influence  of  such 
men  as  the  Duke  of  Argyle  and  others,  was  rejected  by 
the  parliament  on  the  ground  that,  "  to  establish  any 
kind  of  paper  credit,  so  as  to  oblige  it  to  pass,  was  an 
improper  expedient  for  the  nation."  Wise  Scotchmen ! 
They  also  apprehended  that  if  Law's  plan  were  adopted, 
all  the  estates  of  the  kingdom  would  thereby  be  brought 
to  a  complete  dependence  upon  the  bank,  or  collaterally 
upon  the  government,  the  bank  itself  being  dependent 
upon  the  government.  It  is  remarkable  that  more  than 
a  century  after,  in  182*7  and  1833,  Law's  plan,  or  one 
very  similar,  was  put  into  operation  in  Louisiana,  under 
the  titles  of  "The  Citizens'  Bank"  and  "The  Consoli- 
dated Association  of  the  Planters  of  Louisiana,"  and 


198  LAW  RETURNS  TO  THE  CONTINENT. 

that  it  produced  the  same  disastrous  effects  that  were 
anticipated  by  the  Scotch  in  1705. 

It  soon  became  evident  to  Law,  that  his  countrymen 
and  the  English  were  not  sufficiently  imaginative  to 
allow  him  to  tempt  them  into  his  gigantic  experiments, 
and  that  to  better  his  fortune,  it  was  necessary  that  he 
should  seek  elsewhere  for  more  pliable  instruments. 
Accordingly  he  returned  to  the  continent,  whither  let 
us  follow  him,  as  he  flits,  like  an  ignis  fatuus,  from  place 
to  place.  Now  we  see  him  a  man  of  fashion  in  Brus- 
sels, where  his  constant  success  at  play  brought  him 
into  unfavorable  notoriety.  Then  he  dashes  into  the 
vortex  of  Paris,  where  it  is  said  that  he  introduced  the 
game  called  Faro,  and  became  still  more  conspicuous 
than  at  Brussels  by  his  enormous  gains  at  the  gaming- 
table. His  graceful  person,  the  charms  of  his  conversa- 
tion, his  insinuating  manners,  were  rapidly  favoring  his 
ascent  into  the  highest  regions  of  society,  when  D'Ar- 
genson,  the  Lieutenant  or  Minister  of  Police,  thought 
proper  to  cut  short  his  brilliant  career,  and  to  order 
him  out  of  the  kingdom,  with  this  pithy  observation, 
"  That  Scot  is  too  expert  at  the  game  which  he  has  in- 
troduced." 

He  retired  to  Geneva,  where  he  gave  an  extraordi- 
nary proof  of  his  power  of  extracting  money  from  the 
dryest  sources,  by  gaining  large  sums  at  the  expense 
of  the  sober-minded  and  close-fisted  citizens  of  that  pu- 
ritanic little  commonwealth.  In  Genoa  and  in  Venice, 
he  gave  such  evidence  of  his  invariable  luck  at  play, 
that  the  magistrates  of  these  two  cities  deemed  it  their 
duty  to  interfere  for  the  protection  of  their  fellow-citi- 
zens, and  to  banish  Law  from  these  over-exhausted  the- 
aters of  his  exploits.  At  Florence,  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  Duke  of  Vendome,  whom  he  favored 
with  the  loan  of  a  large  sum  of  money.  At  Neufchatel, 


HIS  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS.  199 

he  obtained  access  to  the  Prince  of  Conti,  to  whom,  as 
to  the  Duke  of  Vendome,  he  imparted  his  financial 
schemes.  He  was  thus  skillfully  securing  protection 
for  the  introduction  of  his  plans  into  France,  on  the  first 
favorable  opportunity.  For  several  years  Law  rambled 
over  Europe,  proposing  his  financial  systems  everywhere 
and  to  every  body.  During  a  short  residence  at  Turin, 
he  pressed  the  subject  on  the  King  of  Sardinia,  Victor 
Amadeus — but  that  prudent  sovereign  answered :  "  I 
am  not  rich  enough  to  afford  being  ruined.  France  is 
the  proper  field  where  your  speculative  genius  ought  to 
cast  its  seeds,  and  where  you  will  reap  rich  harvests. 
I  am  sure  that  your  schemes  will  be  to  the  taste  of  my 
mercurial  neighbors.  To  them,  therefore,  I  would  ad- 
vise you  to  repair." 

This  advice  seemed  to'  Law  a  sensible  one,  and  acting 
under  it,  he  returned  to  Paris  with  the  enormous  sum 
of  two  millions  and  five  hundred  thousand  francs,  which 
were  the  result  of  his  success  in  gaming,  and  of  his 
speculations  in  stocks  and  public  funds.  Soon  after 
his  arrival  Louis  the  XlVth  died,  which  was  a  circum-. 
stance  favorable  to  his  pretensions.  He  had  no  longer 
to  deal  only  with  the  prudent  Desmarets,  comptroller- 
general  of  the  finances  of  the  state,  whose  wisdom  had 
discarded  the  tempting  propositions  of  that  adventurer 
in  1708.  But  now,  in  1716,  when  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
as  Regent  of  France,  found  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
government,  the  financial  situation  of  France  had  be- 
come desperate.  The  public  debt  was  immense :  it  was 
a  legacy  bequeathed  by  the  military  glory  of  Louis  the 
XlVth,  and  the  other  pompous  vanities  of  his  long 
reign.  The  consequence  was  that  the  load  of  taxation 
was  overwhelming,  merely  to  pay  the  interest  of  this 
debt,  without  any  hope  of  diminishing  the  capital. 
All  the  sources  of  industry  were  dried  up :  the  very 


200  FORMATION  OF  A  BANK  BY  LAW  IN  PARIS. 

winds  which  wafted  the  barks  of  commerce  seemed  to 
have  died  away  under  the  pressure  of  the  time :  trade 
stood  still :  the  manufactures  were  struck  with  palsy : 
the  merchant,  the  trader,  the  artificer,  once  flourishing 
in  affluence,  were  now  transformed  into  clamorous  beg- 
gars, and  those  who  could  yet  command  some  small 
means  were  preparing  to  emigrate  to  foreign  parts. 
The  life-blood  that  animated  the  kingdom  was  stagna- 
ting in  all  its  arteries:  and  the  danger  of  an  awful 
crisis  became  such,  that  it  was  actually  proposed  in  the 
Council  of  State  to  expunge  the  public  debt  by  an  act 
of  national  bankruptcy.  But  the  Regent  has  the  credit 
of  having  rejected  the  proposition ;  and  a  commission 
was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  financial  situation  of 
the  kingdom,  and  to  prepare  a  remedy  for  the  evil. 

It  was  at  that  time,  when  the  wisest  heads  in  France 
were  not  able  to  see  their  way  through  the  embarrass- 
ments of  the  treasury,  that  John  Law  came  forward 
with  his  panacea.  It  was  to  liquidate  the  debt  of  the 
state,  to  increase  its  revenue,  to  diminish  taxation :  and 
all  these  prodigies  were  to  be  suddenly  produced  by 
the  easiest  process  in  the  world — the  creation  of  a  bank, 
by  which  fictitious  capital,  quite  as  good  as  any  real 
one,  would  be  produced  at  will.  The  Regent,  who  was 
incessantly  in  want  of  money,  and  whose  ardent  imagi- 
nation was  always  easily  captivated  by  every  daring 
and  extraordinary  conception,  eagerly  jumped  at  the 
conclusions  presented  by  Law,  or  L'as,  as  he  was  called 
by  the  French.  He  became  even  a  favorite  of  that 
prince,  and  was  admitted  into  all  the  licentious  priva- 
cies of  the  Palais  Royal.  Soon  after,  in  May,  IT  16,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  made  by  all  the  financiers  of  the 
kingdom,  Law  obtained  letters  patent,  not,  it  is  true, 
complying  with  all  his  magnificent  schemes,  but  estab- 
lishing on  a  very  limited  scale  the  bank  of  which  he 


CREATION  OF  THE  ROYAL  BANK.          201 

was  the  originator,  and  which  was  to  bear  his  name, 
with  a  capital  of  six  millions  of  livres,  divided  into 
shares  of  five  hundred  livres.  It  was  to  be  a  private 
undertaking,  and  intended  by  the  government  as  an 
experiment. 

This  institution  met  with  so  much  success,  and  be- 
came so  popular,  that  in  April,  1717,  the  Council  of 
State  assumed  the  responsibility  of  ordering  that  its 
notes  be  received  as  specie  by  the  royal  treasury,  in  all 
its  branches.  The  influence  of  Law  on  the  Regent  was 
daily  on  the  increase,  and  it  was  he  who  prevailed  on 
that  prince  to  purchase  for  the  king  the  celebrated  dia- 
mond, which,  from  that  circumstance,  was  called  the 
M&ftnt,  and  which  is  still  the  property  of  republican 
France,  and  a  part  of  its  public  domain.  It  was  a  curi- 
osity then  thought  to  be  unique  of  its  kind ;  and  the 
Regent,  although  strongly  tempted,  had  long  hesitated 
to  invest  millions  in  such  an  unproductive  manner,  when 
the  revenue  of  the  kingdom  was  far  below  its  expenses. 
But  Law  removed  his  scruples,  by  persuading  him  that 
he  had  the  means  not  only  of  remedying  the  necessities 
of  France,  but  of  making  her  richer  than  she  had  ever 
been. 

Law  now  began  to  develop  the  stupendous  projects 
he  had  so  long  meditated.  The  success  of  his  private 
bank  had  gained  him  so  much  credit,  that  the  Regent 
was  induced  to  change  its  character,  and  to  make  it  a 
royal  institution.  Law's  bank  was  abolished  in  Decem- 
ber, 1718,  to  give  way  to  the  Royal  Bank,  of  which 
Law  was  named  the  director-general.  From  that  fruit- 
ful parent  trunk  sprung  branches  which  were  estab- 
lished at  Lyons,  Tours,  La  Rochelle,  Orleans,  and 
Amiens. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  as  before  stated,  the 
charter  of  the  Mississippi  Company  had  been  registered 


202  THE  MISSISSIPPI  COMPANY  FORMED. 

by  the  parliament  of  Paris  on  the  6th  of  September, 
1717.  The  capital  of  the  company  was  one  hundred 
millions  of  livres,  to  be  furnished  by  stockholders,  and 
to  be  divided  into  shares  of  five  hundred  livres.  Aliens 
were  permitted  to  become  members  of  the  company, 
and  their  shares  were  exempted  from  the  "  droti  (Pau- 
baine"  and  from  confiscation  in  case  of  war.  The  "  droit 
d'aubaine"  is  the  right  which  the  king  had  to  inherit 
all  the  property  which  an  alien  left  at  his  death.  To 
entice  subscribers,  their  shares  were  made  payable  in  a 
depreciated  paper  currency,  called  "billets  d'etat,"  or 
state  bonds,  which,  however,  in  the  hands  of  subscri- 
bers, were  taken  at  par  or  full  value,  although  their 
depreciation  amounted  to  between  sixty  and  seventy 
per  cent.  This  was  such  a  tempting  bait,  that  it  was 
greedily  gulped  down  by  the  public,  and  the  subscrip- 
tion was  soon  more  than  filled  up.  By  this  operation 
of  taking  the  depreciated  paper  currency  of  the  state 
in  payment  of  subscriptions,  the  company  became  the 
creditor  of  the  state  for  a  sum  of  one  hundred  millions 
of  livres,  on  which  interest  was  to  be  paid  at  the  rate 
of  four  per  cent. 

The  following  were  the  principal  articles  of  the  com- 
pany's charter : — 

It  had  the  exclusive  privilege  of  trading  with  Louisi- 
ana during  twenty-five  years,  and  also  the  monopoly  of 
the  beaver  trade  with  Canada,  it  being  understood  that 
the  king  reserved  to  himself  the  right  of  determining 
the  number  of  skins  that  the  company  should  be  bound 
to  purchase  annually  from  the  Canadians,  at  the  price 
fixed  by  the  government  of  his  Majesty. 

The  company  was  authorized  to  make  treaties  with 
the  Indians,  and  to  wage  war  against  them  in  cases  of 
necessity.  It  had  taken  care  to  secure  the  absolute 
ownership  of  all  the  mines  which  it  could  discover  and 


ARTICLES  OF  ITS  CHARTER.  203 

work,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  much  reliance  was 
placed  on  this  article  of  the  charter. 

The  faculty  was  given  to  the  company  of  making 
grants  of  land,  of  levying  troops,  of  raising  fortifications, 
of  appointing  the  governors  of  the  colony  and  the  other 
officers  commanding  the  troops,  provided  they  should, 
on  presentation,  be  accepted  and  commissioned  by  the 
king.  The  right  of  recalling  or  altering  these  appoint- 
ments was  also  reserved  to  the  company. 

To  build  ships  of  war  and  cast  cannon,  to  appoint 
and  remove  judges  and  officers  of  justice,  except  those 
of  the  Superior  Council,  were  some  of  the  numerous 
powers  granted  to  this  mighty  company. 

Military  officers  in  Louisiana  and  all  others  in  the 
French  service  were  allowed,  with  the  king's  license,  to 
enlist  in  the  pay  of  the  company.  While  in  that  ser- 
vice, their  respective  grades  in  the  navies  or  land  forces 
of  the  realm  were  to  be  retained,  and  they  had  the 
gracious  promise  of  the  king  that  whatever  service  they 
might  render  to  the  company  would  be  acknowledged 
as  rendered  to  himself. 

By  the  consular  jurisdiction  of  the  city  of  Paris,  all 
civil  suits  to  which  the  company  might  be  a  party, 
were  to  be  determined  ;  with  a  right  of  appeal,  in  cases 
above  a  certain  amount,  to  the  parliament  of  Paris. 

The  company  was  prohibited  from  employing  other 
than  French  vessels  and  crews  in  trading  with  Louisi- 
ana, and  all  goods  found  on  the  company's  vessels  were 
to  be  presumed  its  property,  unless  the  contrary  was 
proved. 

Frenchmen,  removing  to  Louisiana,  were  to  preserve 
their  national  character,  and  their  children,  born  there, 
were  to  be  considered  as  the  natural  born  subjects  of 
the  king.  The  same  privilege  was  granted  to  the  chil- 
dren of  all  other  European  settlers  in  Louisiana,  pro- 


20i  CHARTER  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  COMPANY. 

vided  they  professed  the  Koman  Catholic  religion.  To 
encourage  emigration,  it  was  stipulated  that  during  the 
continuance  of  the  company's  charter,  the  inhabitants 
of  Louisiana  were  to  be  exempted  from  the  payment  of 
any  tax,  duty,  or  imposition  whatever. 

To  promote  the  building  of  vessels  in  Louisiana, 
where  it  was  reported  that  the  most  magnificent  timber 
existed  in  its  boundless  forests,  a  bounty  was  to  be 
awarded  for  every  vessel  there  built,  on  its  arrival  in 
France. 

In  anticipation  of  wars  with  the  Indians,  it  was 
agreed  that  forty  thousand  pounds  of  powder  were  to 
be  delivered  annually  to  the  company,  out  of  the  royal 
magazines,  at  the  rate  of  the  manufacturing  cost. 

The  stockholders  were  to  have  a  vote  for  every  fifty 
shares.  During  the  two  first  years,  the  affairs  of  the 
company  were  to  be  conducted  by  directors  appointed 
by  the  king,  and  afterward,  by  others,  elected  trien- 
nially  by  the  stockholders. 

In  order  to  minister  to  the  religious  wants  of  the 
colonists,  the  obligation  was  laid  upon  the  company  to 
build  churches  and  to  provide  for  a  sufficient  number  of 
clergymen.  It  was  understood  that  Louisiana  was  to 
remain  part  of  the  diocess  of  Quebec,  under  whose 
spiritual  authority  it  had  always  been  since  it  had  been 
settled  by  the  French. 

The  company  obliged  itself  to  transport  to  Louisiana, 
before  the  expiration  of  its  charter,  six  thousand  white 
persons  and  three  thousand  negroes :  but  it  was  stipu- 
lated that  these  persons  should  not  be  brought  from 
another  French  colony,  without  the  consent  of  the 
governor  of  that  colony. 

In  consideration  of  the  charges  assumed  by  the  com- 
pany, its  goods  were  to  be  exempted  from  the  payment 
of  any  duty,  and  the  king  promised  not  to  grant  any 


CHARTER  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  COMPANY.  205 

letters  of  dispensation  or  respite  to  any  debtor  of  the 
company.  He  also  gave  the  company  the  solemn  as- 
surance of  his  effectual  protection  against  any  foreign 
nation. 

If  the  company,  as  it  is  seen,  took  special  care  to 
keep  its  debtors  irredeemably  within  its  reach,  it  was  no 
less  solicitous  to  withdraw  itself,  as  much  as  possible, 
from  the  grasp  of  any  one  of  the  creditors  of  its  stock- 
holders, and  it  had  a  clause  inserted  in  its  charter,  by 
which  the  effects,  shares,  and  profits  of  the  stockholders 
could  not  be  seized  and  sold  either  in  the  hands  of  its 
cashier,  its  clerks,  or  agents,  except  it  be  in  cases  of 
open  and  declared  bankruptcy,  or  on  account  of  the 
death  of  the  party. 

All  the  lands,  coasts,  harbors,  and  islands  in  the 
colony  of  Louisiana  were  granted  to  the  company,  as 
they  were  to  Crozat,  on  condition  of  its  taking  the  cus- 
tomary oath  of  faith  and  homage,  as  practiced  in  such 
cases,  and  of  furnishing  to  every  King  of  France,  on  his 
accession  to  the  throne,  a  crown  of  gold  of  the  weight 
of  thirty  marks. 

Thus  Louisiana  was  constituted  into  a  sort  of  com- 
mercial fief,  and  the  Mississippi  Company  rose  almost 
to  the  dignity  of  those  great  feudatory  vassals  who,  in 
the  days  of  old,  had  been,  alternately,  the  pride,  the 
support,  and  the  curse  of  France.  It  did  not  spring  into 
existence,  it  is  true,  in  the  shape  of  a  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy, who,  backed  by  one  hundred  thousand  men, 
could,  if  he  pleased,  set  at  defiance  his  liege  Lord,  and 
could  proudly  enter  through  the  battered  walls  of 
Paris,  with  crested  helmet  on  his  head,  and  the  trunch- 
eon of  command  in  his  hand.  But  it  was  perhaps  a 
being  more  powerful  and  more  dangerous — it  was  a 
company — an  incorporeal  conglomeration,  an  unfathom- 
able, uncontrollable,  unaccountable  creation — -an  agent 


206  LAW  APPOINTED  DIRECTOR-GENERAL. 

with  such  divided  responsibility  that  it  amounted  to 
nothing,  and,  as  Lord  Coke  says  of  corporations — a 
thing  without  a  soul,  to  which,  nevertheless,  a  power 
more  efficacious  and  more  fearful  than  that  exercised 
over  armed  men  was  delegated — the  power  of  control- 
ling commerce ! 

Law  was  appointed  director-general  of  the  Mississippi 
Company,  as  he  had  been  of  the  Royal  Bank,  and  both 
institutions  were  merged  into  one  another.  That  would 
have  been  power  enough  to  satisfy  a  less  craving  am- 
bition, but  Law  was  not  the  man  to  stop  short  in  his 
career  of  aggrandizement.  Thus,  he  soon  obtained  that 
the  farm  of  tobacco,  that  is  the  exclusive  privilege  of 
selling  this  favorite  weed,  be  made  over  to  the  com- 
pany by  the  government,  at  an  advance  of  rent  exceed- 
ing two  millions  of  livres.  This  was  a  pretty  rich 
feather  in  his  cap,  but  it  was  not  enough ;  and  stepping 
from  one  acquisition  to  another,  he  immediately  after- 
ward procured  for  the  company  of  which  he  had  the 
absolute  control  the  grant  of  the  charter  and  effects  of 
the  Senegal  Company.  It  was  piling  up  Pelion  upon 
Ossa,  and  the  world  stood  aghast  with  astonishment  at 
the  extent  of  the  concessions  made  by  the  French  gov- 
ernment to  a  foreign  adventurer.  A  Royal  Bank,  the 
Tobacco  farm,  the  Mississippi  Company,  and  the  Sene- 
gal Company,  with  all  their  millions,  rights,  privileges, 
effects  and  powers,  all  combined  into  a  gigantic  unity ! — 
and  that  unity  put  as  an  instrument  into  the  hands  of 
another  unity  in  the  shape  of  a  man !  This  was  some- 
thing curious  to  look  at  and  to  study  in  its  operations. 

Wise  people  thought  that  the  climax  of  folly  had 
been  reached ;  but  John  Law  laughed  in  his  sleeve  at 
their  inexperience,  or  their  ignorance  of  his  skill,  and 
before  they  had  breathing  time  to  recover  from  their 
surprise,  he  gave  another  proof  of  his  wonderful  leger- 


INCREASE  OF  THE  PRIVILEGES  OF  THE  COMPANY.       207 

demain,  by  purloining  from  the  French  government  a 
still  more  extraordinary  grant  than  the  preceding  ones 
— which  was  the  exclusive  privilege  of  trading  to  the 
East  Indies,  China  and  the  South  Seas,  together  with 
all  the  possessions  and  effects  of  the  China  and  India 
Companies,  now  dissolved,  upon  condition  of  liquidating 
all  just  claims  upon  them.  It  was  then  that  the  Com- 
pany of  the  West,  or  Mississippi  Company,  dropped  its 
original  name  to  take  up  that  of  the  Company  of  the 
Indies,  with  the  privilege  of  creating  additional  shares 
to  the  amount  of  twenty-five  millions,  payable  in  coin. 

This,  it  seems,  ought  to  have  been  enough  to  satiate 
the  most  inordinate  appetite.  Not  so  with  John  Law. 
On  the  25th  of  July,  1719,  the  mint  was  made  over  to 
the  already  overgrown  Company  of  the  Indies,  that 
huge  financial  Polyphemus,  which  owed  its  existence  to 
the  great  Scotch  projector.  This  other  concession  was 
made  for  a  consideration  of  fifty  millions  of  livres,  to  be 
paid  to  the  king  within  fifteen  months.  This  time,  it 
might  have  been  permitted  to  believe  that  the  digestive 
organs  of  this  boa  constrictor,  of  this  king  of  specula- 
tors, were  more  than  overgorged  with  the  accumulation 
of  superabundant  nutrition  with  which  they  had  been 
so  lavishly  favored.  But  John  Law  asked  for  some- 
thing more !  Was  he  shut  up  in  a  lunatic  asylum  for 
his  mad  presumption?  No! — he  obtained  what  he 
begged.  Will  not  the  dullest  mind  be  stimulated  into 
curiosity,  and  will  not  the  quick  inquiry  be:  What 
more  could  John  Law  presume  to  grasp  ?  This : — on 
the  27th  of  August,  1719,  he  obtained  for  his  progeny, 
the  prodigious  Company  of  the  Indies,  the  great  farms 
of  the  revenues  of  the  kingdom,  which  the  Regent  took 
out  of  the.  hands  of  the  farmers  general  and  gave  to  the 
company,  in  consideration  of  its  paying  an  advance  of 
rent  of  three  millions  and  a  half  of  livres :  and  on  the 


208    REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  VAST  POWERS  OF  THE  COMPANY. 

31st  of  the  same  month,  to  cap  the  climax  of  all  these 
almost  supernatural  wonders,  Law  obtained  again  for 
the  same  company  the  general  receipt  or  collection  of 
all  the  other  branches  of  the  king's  revenues. 

Through  this  curious  process  of  complex  annexation 
and  assimilation,  John  Law  had  succeeded  in  erecting 
the  most  stupendous  financial  fabric  that  has  ever  been 
presented  to  the  world.  In  one  company,  and  through 
it,  in  one  man,  was  vested  nothing  less  than  the  whole 
privileges,  effects  and  possessions  of  the  foreign  trade 
companies  of  France,  the  great  farms  of  the  kingdom, 
the  mint,  the  general  receipt  of  the  king's  revenues,  and 
the  management  and  property  of  a  royal  bank,  with  an 
immense  capital!  Thus,  one  man,  an  obscure  foreign 
adventurer,  through  his  creature,  the  company,  had 
condensed  into  one  lump,  which  his  hands  encircled, 
all  the  trade,  taxes,  and  revenues  of  one  of  the  most 
powerful  kingdoms  of  Europe,  and  through  the  Royal 
Bank  he  might,  according  to  his  will,  increase  to  any 
amount  the  circulating  medium  of  that  country !  Does 
not  this  strictly  historical  sketch  smack  of  the  wild  con- 
ception of  a  delirious  mind  ?  Is  not  truth  often  more 
incredible  than  fiction,  and  in  reading  these  lines,  would 
not  misanthropy  be  tempted  to  exclaim :  "  Hail  to  thee, 
mischievous  sorcerer !  Three  times  hail  to  thee,  John 
Law !" — while  poetical  fancy  would  be  permitted  to  in- 
quire if  the  Weird  Sisters,  the  foul  witches  of  his  native 
heaths,  had  not  furnished  him  with  the  spell  under  the 
influence  of  which  so  many  millions  of  his  fellow-beings 
had  been  touched  with  insanity. 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  on  the  showering  of  so  many 
grants  on  the  company,  its  shares  gradually  rose  from 
500  to  1000,  to  5000  and  to  10,000  livres,  which  was 
more  than  sixty  times  the  sum  they  were  originally  sold 
for,  if  the  depreciation  of  the  "  billets  d'etat?  or  state 


FLATTERING  DESCRIPTIONS  OF  LOUISIANA.  209 

bonds,  with  which  they  were  paid,  be  taken  into  ac- 
count. The  desire  to  become  stockholder  in  a  company 
which  promised  to  realize  the  fable  of  the  hen  with 
golden  eggs,  was  fevered  into  frenzy.  There  was  a 
general  rush  of  greedy  subscribers,  far  exceeding  the 
number  wanted,  and  in  their  struggles  to  be  ranked 
among  the  privileged  ones  whose  claims  were  to  be 
admitted,  the  greatest  interest  was  exerted,  and  every 
stratagem  put  in  practice. 

At  the  same  time,  the  press  was  teeming  with  publi- 
cations on  the  Mississippi,  or  the  Colony  of  Louisiana, 
and  France  was  flooded  with  pamphlets  describing  that 
newly-discovered  country,  and  the  advantages  which  it 
offered  to  emigrants.  The  luxuriant  imagination  of 
prolific  writers  was  taxed,  to  clothe  Louisiana  with  all 
the  perfections  they  could  invent.  It  was  more  than 
the  old  Eden,  so  long  lost  to  mankind.  There,  the  pic- 
turesque was  happily  blended  with  the  fertile,  and 
abundance  smiled  on  rocky  mountains  as  on  the  alluvial 
plains  of  the  valleys.  The  climate  was  such  that  all  the 
vegetable  productions  of  the  globe  existed,  or  could  be 
introduced  with  success  in  that  favored  land.  To  scratch 
the  soil,  would  call  forth  the  spontaneous  growth  of  the 
richest  harvests  of  every  kind.  All  the  fruits  ever 
known  were  to  be  gathered  in  profusion  from  the  for- 
ests, all  the  year  round,  and  the  most  luscious  peaches, 
pears,  apples,  and  other  like  nutritious  delicacies,  drop- 
ping from  their  parent  boughs,  were  piled  up  in  heaps 
under  cool  shades  and  on  the  velvet  banks  of  bubbling 
streams.  There,  dust  and  mud  were  equally  excluded, 
as  the  ground  was  lined  in  all  seasons  with  a  thick  car- 
pet of  flowers,  endless  in  variety,  and  perfuming  the  air 
with  their  sweet  breath.  The  finest  breed  of  all  domes- 
tic or  useful  animals  was  there  to  be  found  in  all  the 
primitive  vigor  and  gentleness  of  their  antediluvian 
o 


210  FLATTERING  DESCRIPTIONS 

perfection.  The  poor  peasant  who,  during  a  long  life 
in  France,  had  never  dreamed  of  eating  meat,  would 
there  feed  on  nothing  less  than  wild  ducks,  venison, 
pheasants,  snipes  and  woodcocks.  The  birds  kept  up  a 
never-ceasing  concert,  which  would  have  shamed  the 
opera  singing  of  Paris.  The  rivers  and  lakes  were 
stocked  with  fish,  so  abundant  that  they  would  suffice 
to  nourish  millions  of  men,  and  so  delicate  that  no  king 
ever  had  any  such  on  his  table. 

The  seasons  were  so  slightly  marked  that  the  coun- 
try might  be  said  to  be  blessed  with  a  perpetual  spring. 
None  but  gentle  winds  fluttered  over  this  paradise,  to 
fan  and  keep  forever  blooming  its  virgin  beauties,  and 
in  their  gamboling  flight  through  boundless  prairies  and 
forests,  they  produced  the  effect  of  Eolian  harps,  lulling 
enchanted  nature  to  sleep  with  heavenly  music.  The 
sky  was  brighter,  the  sun  more  gorgeous,  the  moon 
more  chastely  serene  and  pure,  and  the  nights  more 
lovely  than  anywhere  else.  Heaven  itself  seemed  to 
bend  down  upon  earth  in  conjugal  dalliance,  and  to  en- 
viron it  with  circumambient  love.  There,  it  is  true,  it 
could  not  be  said  to  have  been  positively  ascertained 
that  the  fountain  of  eternal  youth  had  been  discovered, 
but  it  was  beyond  doubt  that  there  was  in  the  atmos- 
phere a  peculiar  element  which  preserved  from  putre- 
faction ; — and  the  human  body,  being  impregnated  with 
it,  was  so  little  worn  out  by  the  action  of  its  organs, 
that  it  could  keep  itself  in  existence  almost  indefinitely ; 
and  the  Indians  were  known  to  retain  the  appearance 
of  youth  even  after  having  attained  five  or  six  hundred 
years.  Those  very  Indians  had  conceived  such  an  at- 
tachment for  the  white  men,  whom  they  considered  as 
gods,  that  they  would  not  allow  them  to  labor,  and  in- 
sisted on  performing  themselves  all  the  work  that  might 
be  necessary  for  the  comfort  of  their  pale-faced  brethren. 


OF  LOUISIANA.  211 

It  was  profanation  in  their  eye  not  to  minister  to  all  the 
wants  of  their  idolized  guests. 

More  enticing  than  all  that,  was  the  pretended  dis- 
covery of  inexhaustible  mines  of  gold  and  silver,  which, 
however,  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  work  by  the 
usual  tedious  process,  because  the  whole  surface  of  the 
country  was  strewed  with  lumps  of  gold,  and  when  the 
waters  of  the  lakes  and  rivers  were  filtered,  particularly 
the  thick  water  of  the  Mississippi,  it  yielded  an  invalua- 
ble deposit  of  gold.  As  to  silver,  it  was  so  common 
that  it  would  become  of  no  value,  and  would  have  to  be 
used  in  the  shape  of  square  stones,  to  pave  the  public 
roads.  The  fields  were  covered  with  an  indigenous 
plant  which  was  gifted  with  the  most  singular  prop- 
erty. The  dew  which  gathered  within  the  perfumed 
cups  of  its  flowers  would,  in  the*  course  of  a  single 
night,  be  converted  into  a  solid  diamond :  and  the  soft 
texture  of  the  flowers  bursting  open  and  dropping  down 
under  the  weight  of  its  contents,  would  leave  the  pre- 
cious gem  resting  on  the  stem  in  unrobed  splendor,  and 
reflecting  back  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun.  What  is 
written  on  California  in  our  days  would  appear  tame 
when  compared  to  the  publications  on  Louisiana  in 
1719 :  and  the  far-famed  and  extravagant  description 
of  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  given  at  a  later  period 
by  Chateaubriand,  would,  at  the  time  I  speak  of,  have 
been  hooted  at,  as  doing  injustice  to  the  merits  of  the 
new  possession  France  had  acquired. 

When  the  extreme  gullibility  of  mankind,  as  demon- 
strated by  the  occurrences  of  every  day,  is  taken  into 
consideration,  what  I  here  relate  will  not  appear  exag- 
gerated or  incredible.  Be  it  as  it  may,  these  descrip- 
tions were  believed  in  France,  and  from  the  towering 
palace  to  the  humblest  shed  in  the  kingdom,  nothing 
else  was  talked  of  but  Louisiana  and  its  wonders.  The 


212  FRENZY  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

national  debt  was  to  be  paid  instantaneously  with  the 
Louisiana  gold,  France  was  to  purchase  or  to  conquer 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  every  Frenchman  was  to  be 
a  wealthy  lord.  There  never  had  been  a  word  invested 
with  such  magical  charms  as  the  name  of  Louisiana, 
It  produced  delirium  in  every  brain:  to  Louisiana 
every  one  wished  to  go,  as  now  to  California,  and  some 
of  the  most  unimproved  parts  of  that  colony  were 
actually  sold  for  30,000  livres  the  square  league,  which, 
considering  the  difference  in  value  in  metallic  currency 
between  that  time  and  the  present,  makes  that  sum  al- 
most equal  to  twenty  thousand  dollars  at  the  present 
day. 

Who  could  describe  with  sufficient  graphic  fidel- 
ity the  intense  avidity  with  which  the  shares  of  the 
Company  of  the  Indies  were  hunted  up?  All  ranks 
were  seized  with  the  same  frantic  infatuation.  To  be 
a  stockholder  was  to  be  reputed  rich,  and  the  poorest 
beggar,  when  he  exhibited  the  proof  that  by  some 
windfall  or  other  he  had  become  the  owner  of  one 
single  share,  rose  at  once  to  the  importance  of  a  wealthy 
man,  and  could  command  the  largest  credit.  There 
was  a  general  struggle  to  raise  money,  for  the  purpose 
of  speculating  in  the  stocks  of  the  marvelous  company 
which  was  to  convert  every  thing  it  touched  into  gold. 
Every  kind  of  property  was  offered  for  sale,  and  made 
payable  in  stocks.  Castellated  domains  which  had 
been  for  centuries  the  proudly  cherished  possessions  of 
the  same  families  were  bartered  away  for  a  mess  of 
financial  porridge,  and  more  than  one  representative  of 
a  knightly  house  doffed  off  the  warm  lining  that  had 
been  bequeathed  to  him  by  his  ancestors,  to  dress  him- 
self, like  a  bedlamite,  in  the  worthless  rags  of  unsub- 
stantial paper.  Such  rapid  mutations  in  real  estate  the 
world  had  never  seen  before !  Lands,  palaces,  edifices 


TO  BECOME  STOCKHOLDERS.  213 

of  every  sort,  were  rapidly  shifted  from  hand  to  hand, 
like  balls  in  a  tennis-court.  It  was  truly  a  curious  sight 
to  behold  a  whole  chivalrous  nation  turned  into  a  con- 
fused multitude  of  swindling,  brawling,  clamorous,  fran- 
tic stock-jobbers.  Holy  cardinals,  archbishops,  bishops, 
with  but  too  many  of  their  clergy,  forgetting  their 
sacred  character,  were  seen  ,to  launch  their  barks  on  the 
dead  sea  of  perdition  to  which  they  were  tempted,  and 
eagerly  to  throw  the  fisherman's  net  into  those  troubled 
waters  of  speculation  which  were  lashed  into  fury  by  the 
demon  of  avarice.  Princes  of  the  royal  blood  became 
hawkers  of  stocks :  haughty  peers  of  the  realm  rushed 
on  the  Rialto,  and  Shylock-like,  exulted  in  bartering 
and  trafficking  in  bonds.  Statesmen,  magistrates,  war- 
riors, assuming  the  functions  of  pedlers,  were  seen  wan- 
dering about  the  streets  and  public  places,  offering  to 
buy  and  to  sell  stocks,  shares,  or  actions.  Nothing  else 
was  talked  of;  the  former  usual  topics  of  conversation 
stood  still.  Not  only  women,  but  ladies  of  the  highest 
rank  forgot  the  occupations  of  their  sex,  to  rush  into 
the  vortex  of  speculation,  and  but  too  many  among 
them  sold  every  thing,  not  excepting  their  honor,  to 
become  stockholders. 

The  company  having  promised  an  annual  dividend  of 
200  livres  on  every  share  of  500  livres,  which,  it  must 
be  remembered,  had  been  originally  paid  for  in  depre- 
ciated billets  d'etat,  or  state  bonds,  making  the  interest 
to  be  received  on  every  share  still  more  enormous,  the 
delirium  soon  culminated  to  its  highest  point.  Every 
thing  foreign  to  the  great  Mississippi  scheme  was  com- 
pletely forgotten.  The  people  seemed  to  have  but  one 
pursuit,  but  one  object  in  life:  mechanics  dropped  their 
tools,  tradesmen  closed  their  shops ;  there  was  but  one 
profession,  one  employment,  one  occupation,  for  persons 
of  all  ranks — that  of  speculating  in  stocks:  and  the 


214        EFFECTS  OF  SPECULATION  IN  STOCKS. 

most  moderate,  the  few  who  abstained  from  joining  in 
the  wild-goose  chase,  were  so  intensely  absorbed  by  the 
contemplation  of  the  spectacle  which  was  offered  to 
their  bewildered  gaze,  that  they  took  no  concern  in 
any  thing  else.  Quincampoix  Street,  where  the  offices 
of  the  company  were  kept,  was  literally  blocked  up  by 
the  crowd  which  the  fury  of  speculation  and  the  pas- 
sion for  sudden  wealth  attracted  to  that  spot,  and  per- 
sons were  frequently  crushed  or  stifled  to  death.  "  Mis- 
sissippi ! — Who  wants  any  Mississippi  ?" — was  bawled 
out  in  every  lane  and  by-lane,  and  every  nook  and 
corner  of  Paris  echoed  with  the  word,  "  Mississippi !" 

Immense  fortunes  were  lost  or  acquired  in  a  few 
weeks.  By  stock-jobbing,  obscure  individuals  were  sud- 
denly raised  from  the  sewers  of  poverty  to  the  gilded 
rooms  of  princely  splendor.  Most  amusing  anecdotes 
might  be  told  of  persons  thus  stumbling  by  chance  into 
affluence;  and  heart-rending  stories  might  be  related 
of  such  as,  from  the  possession  of  every  luxury,  were 
precipitated  into  the  depths  of  absolute  destitution; 
while  those  who  had  become  spontaneously  rich,  being 
made  giddy  with  their  unexpected  acquisitions,  launched 
into  such  profusions  and  follies  that  their  return  to  pov- 
erty was  as  rapid  as  their  accession  to  wealth,  through 
which  it  might  be  said  they  had  only  passed  with  the 
velocity  of  steam  locomotion.  He  who  could  write  in 
all  its  details  the  history  of  that  Mississippi  bubble,  so 
fatal  in  its  short-lived  duration,  would  give  to  the  world 
the  most  instructive  composition,  made  up  of  the  most 
amusing,  ludicrous,  monstrous  and  horrible  elements 
that  were  ever  jumbled  together. 

The  distribution  of  property  underwent  more  than 
one  grotesque  change.  The  tenants  of  the  parlor  or 
saloon  went  up  to  the  garret,  and  the  natives  of  the 
garret  tumbled  down  into  the  saloon.  Footmen  changed 


ADVANCEMENT  OF  LAW,  THE  DIRECTOR-GENERAL.        215 

places  with  their  masters,  and  the  outside  of  carriages 
happened  to  become  the  inside.  Law's  coachman  made 
such  a  large  fortune  that  he  set  up  an  equipage  of  his 
own.  Cookmaids  and  waiting-women  appeared  at  the 
opera,  bedizened  in  finery  like  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  A 
baker's  son,  who  used  to  carry  his  father's  loaves  in  a* 
basket  to  his  customers,  was,  by  a  sudden  turn  of  the 
wheel  of  fortune,  enabled  to  purchase  plate  to  the 
amount  of  four  hundred  thousand  livres,  which  he  sent 
to  his  wife,  with  the  recommendation  of  having  it  prop- 
erly set  out  for  supper,  and  with  the  strict  injunction 
of  putting  in  the  largest  and  finest  dish  his  favorite 
stew  of  onions  and  hog's  feet.  The  Marquis  d'Oyse, 
of  the  family  of  the  Dukes  of  Villars  Brancas,  signed  a 
contract  of  marriage,  although  he  was  at  the  time  thirty- 
three  years  of  age,  with  the  daughter,  three  years  old, 
of  a  man  named  Andre,  who  had  won  millions  at  the 
Mississippi  lottery.  The  conditions  of  the  marriage 
were,  that  it  should  take  place  when  the  girl  should 
reach  her  twelfth  year,  and  that,  in  the  mean  time,  the 
marquis  was  to  receive  three  hundred  thousand  livres 
in  cash,  twenty  thousand  livres  every  year  until  the 
day  of  the  wedding,  when  several  millions  would  be 
paid  to  the  husband  by  the  father  of  the  bride.  All 
these  meteors,  who  were  thus  blazing  in  their  newly- 
acquired  splendor,  were  called  "  Mississippians,"  on  ac- 
count of  the  source  of  their  fortune. 

Let  us  now  turn  from  the  system,  to  its  inventor — to 
John  Law,  who,  under  such  circumstances  operating  in 
his  favor,  was  adored  by  the  people ;  and  as  usual,  they 
were  few  indeed  who  refrained  from  worshiping  the 
idol  of  the  hour,  and  from  burning  incense  at  his  shrine. 
He  was  a  favorite  with  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  Regent 
of  France,  of  whom  he  was  known  to  possess  the  ear ; 
and  on  his  abjuring  in  the  hands  of  Abbe  Tencin,  since 


216  THE  ZENITH  OF  LAW'S  PROSPERITY. 

a  cardinal,  the  Protestant  religion,  which  was  the  only 
obstacle  to  his  advancement  to  the  highest  offices  of  the 
state,  he  was  appointed,  on  the  5th  of  January,  1720 
comptroller-general  of  the  finances  of  the  kingdom. 
To  so  eminent  a  personage,  England  sent,  of  course,  a 
free  and  absolute  pardon  for  the  murder  of  Wilson ;  and 
Edinburgh,  proud  of  having  given  him  birth,  tendered 
him  the  freedom  of  the  city  in  a  gold  box.  Poets,  tuning 
their  lyres  to  sing  his  apotheosis,  declared  him  to  be  the 
Magnus  Apollo  of  the  age,  and  the  Academy  of  Sciences 
elected  him  one  of  its  honorary  members.  It  is  impossi- 
ble not  to  pay  a  tribute  of  admiration  to  the  talents  of 
that  low-born  adventurer,  who,  in  less  than  four  years, 
by  his  own  unassisted  exertions,  and  even  in  despite  of 
the  most  strenuous  opposition  from  formidable  adver- 
saries, rose  from  a  suspicious  position  in  private  life,  to 
be  one  of  the  ministers  of  one  of  the  most  powerful  and 
enlightened  nations  of  the  world.  The  Duke  of  St. 
Simon,  who  knew  him  well,  and  who  writes  of  him  with 
partiality  in  his  celebrated  memoirs,  says,  that  Law  had 
a  strong  Scotch  accent,  but  that  although  there  was 
much  English  in  his  French,  he  was  extremely  persua- 
sive, and  that  he  had  the  peculiar  tact,  by  assuming  an 
air  of  exquisite  candor,  frankness,  straightness,  and 
modest  diffidence,  to  throw  off  their  guard  those  he 
wished  to  seduce.  With  prodigious  powers  of  insinu- 
ation and  persuasion  he  must  indeed  have  been  gifted, 
to  have  operated  all  the  wonders  we  have  seen ! 

Law,  who  had  the  pretension  of  enriching  every  body, 
did  not,  as  it  is  very  natural  to  suppose,  forget  his  own 
pecuniary  interest,  and  had  purchased  no  less  than  four- 
teen of  the  most  magnificent  estates  of  France  with 
titles  annexed  to  them,  and  among  which  was  the  Mar- 
quisate  of  Rosny ;  that  domain  had  been  owned,  and 
its  splendid  castle  had  been  occupied  as  a  favorite  resi- 


ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  LAW'S  POSITION  AND  BEARING.     217 

dence  by  the  illustrious  friend  and  minister  of  Henry 
the  IVth,  the  great  Sully,  who,  before  he  was  created 
duke  of  that  name,  had  borne  the  title  of  Marquis  of 
Rosny.  But  Law  had  attained  his  highest  degree  of 
prosperity,  and  the  wind  was  already  blowing  which 
was  to  prostrate  him  to  the  ground  from  his  towering 
altitude. 

The  year  IT 20,  which  saw  him  at  the  zenith  of  his 
prosperity,  witnessed  also  his  rapid  declension,  and  his 
ultimate  fall  into  the  abyss  of  adversity,  where  he  was 
forever  lost.  But  how  dazzling  his  position  was  on  the 
5th  day  of  that  year,  1720,  when  he  was  appointed 
comptroller-general  of  the  finances  of  the  kingdom ! 
At  that  time,  he  was  literally  besieged  in  his  splendid 
palace  by  a  host  of  applicants  and  supplicants  of  every 
description.  His  friendship  was  courted  with  cringing 
eagerness  by  princes,  dukes,  peers  of  the  realm,  mar- 
shals and  prelates,  who  reverentially  bowed,  and  bent  a 
supple  knee  to  the  upstart,  in  the  mean  hope  of  secur- 
ing his  patronage.  Nobles  crowded  his  ante-chambers  in 
democratic  conjunction  with  a  motley  crew  of  people  of 
every  hue  and  feather.  It  was  thought  to  be  a  lucky 
accident  or  a  high  honor  to  attract  even  his  passing 
notice,  and  ladies  of  the  most  exalted  rank  were  not 
ashamed  to  ply  meretricious  smiles  to  win  his  favor. 

With  no  very  great  stretch  of  the  imagination,  we 
may  easily  conceive  the  occurrence  of  such  a  scene  as 
the  following:  far  from  the  bustle  of  the  street,  and 
from  the  crowd  which  encumbers  his  apartments  of  re- 
ception, in  a  retired  but  richly  and  tastefully  decorated 
room  of  his  princely  residence,  John  Law  is  taking  his 
luncheon  in  the  sole  company  of  his  son,  his  daughter, 
and  his  pretended  wife,  who,  says  the  Duke  of  Saint 
Simon,  was  a  high-born  English  lady.  Enamored  of 
Law,  she  had  left  her  family  and  dignified  position  in 


218  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  LAW'S  POSITION 

society,  to  follow  hirn.  She  was  very  haughty,  and  the 
superciliousness  of  her  manners  was  such,  that  it  fre- 
quently became  impertinent.  She  rarely  paid  visits 
except  to  the  chosen  few:  she  received  homage  as  her 
due,  paid  none,  and  exercised  in  her  house  a  despotic 
authority.  Her  well-shaped  person  looked  noble,  and 
she  would  have  been  thought  handsome,  if  a  horrid 
stain  of  the  color  of  red  wine  had  not  covered  half  of 
her  face  and  one  eye.  It  is  well  known  that  Law  al- 
ways treated  her  with  the  utmost  respect  and  ten- 
derness. 

Sitting  in  front  of  her  at  a  table  adorned  with  ex- 
quisitely carved  gold  and  silver  implements,  Law  seemed 
to  be  enjoying  with  peculiar  relish  the  quiet  atmosphere 
of  his  family  circle.  Now  and  then  his  confidential 
groom  of  the  bed-chamber  glided  in,  and  whispered 
into  his  ear  the  arrival  of  some  distinguished  personage 
who  had  come  to  swell  the  retinue  that  filled  his  apart- 
ments, and  anxiously  expected  his  appearance.  At 
each  announcement  of  a  high-sounding  name,  of  a  duke, 
a  marshal,  a  great  dignitary  of  the  church,  a  smile  of 
triumph  would  flit  across  his  face,  and  he  would  cast  a 
look  of  exultation  at  his  wife,  whose  natural  pride  ap- 
peared to  be  intensely  alive  to  the  enjoyment  which 
was  administered  to  it  by  her  husband.  But  Law, 
keeping  his  self-composure,  would  answer,  with  the  ut- 
most unconcern,  and  without  hurrying  his  meal,  when- 
ever a  new  name  was  brought  in  to  him :  "  Well !  well ! 
let  him  wait !"  On  a  sudden,  the  servant  entered  again, 
but  not  with  the  same  measured  step,  and  cried  out  with 
a  voice  which  emotion  raised  far  beyond  its  usual  key  : 
"My  lord,  his  highness  the  Prince  of  Conti."  Law 
jumped  up  as  if  the  irresistible  action  of  a  spring  in  his 
seat  had  forced  him  into  his  erect  attitude,  his  face  be- 
came flushed,  and  his  limbs  trembled.  "  Ha  !"  ex- 


AND  BEARING  IN  PROSPERITY.  219 

claimed  he,  "a  prince  of  the  royal  blood  under  my 
roof!"  But  a  thought  flashed  through  his  brain,  he 
knit  his  brows,  compressed  his  lips,  looked  at  his  wife 
with  an  expression  of  intense  pride,  and  resuming  his 
chair,  composedly  turned  to  his  servant,  and  with  the 
same  tone  of  voice  with  which  he  had  answered  every 
other  call,  he  said :  "  Let  him  wait."  Here  is  something 
to  moralize  upon,  if  moralizing  was  not  so  flat,  stale  and 
unprofitable.  A  Bourbon,  the  descendant  of  a  long 
line  of  kings,  to  be  kept  waiting  in  the  ante-chambers 
of  the  son  of  a  Scotch  goldsmith !  A  prince  of  the 
royal  blood  of  France  to  dance  attendance  on  a  low 
adventurer,  an  exiled  outlaw,  who  had  successively  and 
collectively  been  called  the  gambler,  the  swindler,  the 
profligate,  the  bankrupt,  the  adulterer,  the  murderer, 
the  apostate.  O  the  power  of  gold !  Can  we  not  di- 
vine the  feeling  that  made  Law's  blood  thrill  with  ex- 
citement !  Ours  must  be  one  of  unmitigated  contempt. 
Now  the  scene  has  shifted,  and  John  Law  is  rusticat- 
ing at  his  castle  of  Rosny,  the  Once  proud  seat  of  Sully, 
in  Normandy.  Reclining  in  a  gothic,  richly  carved 
chair,  with  a  high  back  still  retaining,  chiseled  in  its 
oak,  the  coat-of-arms  of  Sully,  and  tapering  into  a  point 
surmounted  by  a  ducal  crown, — in  the  very  chair  of 
state  of  that  haughty  feudal  baron,  and  with  his  feet 
resting  on  the  lower  and  more  modest  chair  of  .the 
Duchess  of  Sully,  for  in  those  days  Sully's  wife  would 
not  have  dared  to  occupy  a  seat  of  equal  dignity  with 
that  of  her  lord, — our  great  financier,  John  Law,  before 
indulging  in  his  nightly  repose,  is  reckoning  up  in 
his  mind  his  acquired  wealth,  and  framing  new  plans 
still  to  increase  its  already  enormous  bulk.  It  is  mid- 
night— and  the  solemn  hour  of  twelve  strikes  at  the  big 
tower's  clock !  Hist ! — a  slow,  solemn  step  is  heard — 
it  comes  from  the  stair  running  up  the  turret  which 


220          THE  VISION  OF  LAW  IN  THE  CASTLE  OF  ROSNY. 

opens  into  Law's  room.  What  can  it  be  ?  The  light 
burns  blue  on  his  table : — Law's  soul  is  suddenly  awed 
with  the  consciousness  that  an  unnatural  atmosphere  is 
gathering  round  him.  His  hair  stands  erect:  a  cold 
chill  shoots,  through  his  body,  and  his  eyes  involun- 
tarily turn  to  that  iron  door  which  the  strange  visitor 
is  gradually  approaching.  O  wonder !  There  is  no 
using  of  the  key — no  unbarring — and  yet  the  door 
grates  on  its  rusty  hinges — and  opens  wide.  God! 
can  it  be  true  ? — can  such  things  be  ? 

It  is  Sully  himself,  with  his  so  well-known  stern  face, 
and  with  the  same  antiquated  dress  in  which  he  was 
clad,  when  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  being  summoned 
from  his  retirement  to  the  court  of  Louis  the  XHIth,  to 
give  advice  on  matters  of  importance,  and  his  unfashion- 
able appearance  having  provoked  a  laugh  from  those 
butterfly  courtiers  who  surrounded  the  young  king,  he 
frowned  them  down  with  an  air  of  inexpressible  majesty 
and  contempt,  and  then,  looking  at  the  crowned  son  of 
his  old  friend,  Henry  the  IVth : — "  Sire,"  said  he, "  when- 
ever the  king,  your  respected  father,  sent  for  me,  he 
used  to  dismiss  from  his  presence  all  the  buffoons,  mas- 
queraders  and  jackanapes  of  the  palace." — It  is  the 
same  Sully,  to  whom  the  king  having  exhibited  a  paper 
which,  to  the  disgrace  of  royalty,  he  had  signed  in  a 
moment  of  weakness,  seized  it,  tore  it  to  pieces,  and  on 
the  king  having  exclaimed :  "  Are  you  mad,  Sully !" 
answered,  "  Would  to  God  that  I  were  the  only  mad- 
man in  your  kingdom !" — It  is  he,  whose  sense  of  his 
feudal  and  personal  dignity  was  such,  that  he  never 
would  descend  to  his  terraced  garden,  even  to  indulge 
in  an  early  morning  walk,  without  having  before  and 
behind  him  a  file  of  halberdiers  escorting  him  in  state. 
A  bold  man  John  Law  was.  But  when  this  apparition 
met  his  sight,  drops  of  cold  sweat  pearled  down  his 
forehead,  his  voice  stuck  in  his  throat,  and  terror  fet- 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  DIFFICULTIES.  221 

tered  him  to  his  seat,  as  if  his  limbs  had  been  bound 
with  chains  of  adamant.  Indeed,  a  stouter  heart  than 
his  would  have  been  frozen  by  the  gaze  which  Sully 
bent  upon  him,  a  gaze  in  which  were  so  vividly  ex- 
pressed intense,  indignant  surprise  at  the  witnessed 
profanation,  and  the  scowling  threat  of  condign  punish- 
ment. Ay,  a  bolder  man  than  John  Law  would  have 
sunk  to  the  ground  when,  with  rapid  strides,  Sully  ad- 
vanced toward  him,  and  lifting  up  the  hunting  whip 
which  his  hand  tightly  grasped,  exclaimed,  "  Dog  of  a 
stock-jobber  !  vile  Scotch  hound,  darest  thou  pollute — '' 
A  shriek  ! — a  fearful  shriek  was  heard — and  John  Law 
shook  off  his  agonizing  dream.  Yea — it  was  only  a 
dream.  But  some  dreams  are  prophetic,  and  these  arc 
the  scenes  in  which  the  imagination  of  the  historian 
may  be  permitted  to  indulge,  to  give  more  graphic  force 
to  the  truths  of  his  narrative. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Law  had  carried  on  all 
his  projects  so  far,  without  encountering  incessant  op- 
position. Among  his  adversaries  the  parliament  of 
Paris  had  been  the  most  redoubtable,  and  that  power- 
ful body  had  been  always  on  the  watch  to  seize  a  fa- 
vorable opportunity  to  crush  Law  and  his  system. 
That  opportunity  was  soon  to  present  itself.  Under- 
mined by  the  intrigues  of  his  other  colleagues  in  the 
ministry,  carried  away  by  the  innate  imperfections  of 
his  system  farther  than  he  had  intended,  terrified  at 
the  mighty  evolutions  of  the  tremendous  engine  he  had 
set  at  work,  and  could  no  longer  control  or  stop,  the 
victim  of  a  combination  of  envy,  apprehension,  igno- 
rance and  avarice,  which  interfered  with  his  designs, 
and  made  him  pay  too  dear  for  protection  or  assist- 
ance, Law  felt  that  the  moment  of  his  fall  was  ap- 
proaching, and  saw  with  terror  the  threatening  oscilla- 
tions of  the  overgrown  fabric  he  had  reared.  He  tried 
to  conceal  his  embarrassments  by  inducing  the  company 


222        EFFORTS  OF  LAW  TO  AVERT  THE  CATASTROPHE. 

to  declare  that  they  had  such  a  command  of  funds  as  to  be 
able  to  propose  lending  any  sum  on  proper  security  at 
two  per  cent.  But  in  vain  did  they  put  on  this  show  of 
confidence  in  their  own  resources : — the  smiling  mask  de- 
ceived nobody.  There  were  symptoms  which  too  plainly 
denoted  approaching  dissolution  and  death.  Among 
those  dark  spots  was  the  number  of  bank  notes  which 
had  been  manufactured,  and  which,  on  the  1st  of  May, 
1Y20,  exceeded  2600  millions  of  livres,  while  the  whole 
specie  in  the  kingdom  amounted  only  to  1300  millions. 
Then  happened  what  has  been  frequently  seen  since : 
the  superabundance  of  paper  money  produced  a  scarcity 
of  specie.  It  became  evident  to  the  most  obtuse  that 
those  bank  notes  had  no  representative,  and  that  sooner 
or  later  they  would  be  no  more  than  worthless  rags. 
As  soon  as  that  discovery  was  made,  every  one  hasten- 
ed to  convert  his  shares  or  bank  notes  into  gold  or  sil- 
ver, and  to  realize  the  fortune  he  had  acquired.  The 
most  keen-sighted,  or  the  most  prudent,  not  only  ex- 
changed their  notes  for  specie,  but  sent  it  out  of 
France  ;  and  it  is  calculated  that  in  this  way  the  king- 
dom was  drained  of  500  millions  of  livres.  To  avert 
the  danger  with  which  his  system  was  threatened,  Law, 
in  less  than  eight  months,  promulgated  thirty-three 
edicts  to  fix  the  value  of  gold  and  silver,  to  preserve 
and  to  increase  the  metallic  circulation,  and  to  limit  the 
amount  of  gold  and  silver  which  might  be  converted 
into  plate  and  jewelry.  No  payment  in  specie  could  be 
made  except  for  small  sums  :  the  standard  of  coin  was 
kept  in  the  most  bewildering  state  of  fluctuation,  while 
the  value  of  bank  notes  was  decreed  to  be  invariable. 
Rents,  taxes,  and  customs,  were  made  payable  in  paper 
only  : — and  as  a  climax  to  these  high-handed  measures, 
individuals  as  well  as  secular  or  religious  communities 
were  prohibited,  under  very  severe  penalties,  from  hav- 


THE  BUBBLE  BURST.  223 

ing  in  their  possession  more  than  500  livres  in  specie. 
This  ordinance  established  the  most  intolerable  inquisi- 
tion, and  gave  rise  to  the  most  vexatious  researches  on 
the  part  of  the  police.  The  house  of  no  citizen  was  free 
from  the  visits  of  the  agents  of  power,  and  every  man 
trembled  to  see  denunciation  lurking  by  his  fireside, 
and  to  harbor  treason  by  the  very  altars  of  his  house- 
hold gods. 

The  alarm  of  the  public  mind  became  such,  that  it 
was  thought  necessary  to  equalize  the  proportion  be- 
tween the  bank  notes  and  the  coin ;  and  on  the  21st  of 
May,  1720,  an  edict  was  issued,  which,  in  violation  of 
the  pledge  of  the  state,  and  of  the  most  solemn  stipula 
tions,  and  as  a  beginning  of  bankruptcy,  reduced  the 
value  of  the  company's  bank  notes  to  one  half,  and  cut 
down  the  shares  from  10,000,  and  even  20,000,  which 
was  their  highest  ascent,  to  5000  livres.  The  effect  of 
this  edict  was  instantaneous  and  overwhelming.  At 
once,  all  confidence  was  lost  in  the  bank  notes : — gene- 
ral consternation  prevailed:  and  no  one  would  have 
given  twenty  cents  in  hard  coin  for  millions  in  bank 
paper.  There  was  a  rush  on  the  bank  for  payment, 
and  one  will  easily  form  a  conception  of  the  fury,  de- 
spair and  distress  of  the  people,  when  he  is  informed 
that  on  the  stopping  of  payment  by  the  bank,  there 
was  paper  in  circulation  amounting  to  2,235,085,590 
livres.  The  whole  of  it  was  suddenly  reduced  to  zero. 
In  the  whole  of  France  there  was  but  one  howl  of  mal- 
ediction, and  guards  had  to  be  given  to  Law,  who  had 
become  an  object  of  popular  abhorrence.  Even  the  life 
of  the  Regent  himself  was  put  in  jeopardy,  and  it  be- 
came necessary  to  station  troops  in  different  parts  of 
Paris,  where  seditious  and  inflammatory  libels  had  been 
posted  up  and  circulated,  to  increase  the  confusion  and 
tumultuous  disorder  which  reigned  everywhere.  It 


224:  REVOLUTION  IN  PUBLIC  OPINION 

was  apparent  that  France  had  been  transformed  into  a 
volcano,  from  which  the  slightest  cause  would  have  pro- 
duced an  eruption. 

"With  regard  to  Louisiana,  there  had  "been  also  a  great 
revolution  in  the  public  estimate  of  her  merits.  She 
was  no  longer  described  as  the  land  of  promise,  but  as 
a  terrestrial  representation  of  Pandemonium.  The 
whole  country  was  nothing  else,  it  was  said,  but  a  vile 
compound  of  marshes,  lagoons,  swamps,  bayous,  fens, 
bogs,  endless  prairies,  inextricable  and  gloomy  forests, 
peopled  with  every  monster  of  the  natural  and  of  the 
mythological  world.  The  Mississippi  rolled  onward  a 
muddy  and  thick  substance,  which  hardly  deserved  the 
name  of  water,  and  which  was  alive  with  every  insect 
and  every  reptile.  Enormous  trunks,  branches  and 
fragments  of  trees  were  swept  down  by  the  velocity  of 
the  current,  and  in  such  quantity  as  almost  to  bridge 
over  the  bed  of  the  river,  and  they  prevented  commu- 
nication from  one  bank  to  the  other,  by  crushing  every 
bark  or  canoe  that  attempted  the  passage.  At  one 
epoch  of  the  year,  the  whole  country  was  overflowed 
by  that  mighty  river,  and  then,  all  the  natives  betook 
themselves  to  the  tops  of  trees,  where  they  roosted  and 
lived  like  monkeys,  and  jumped  from  tree  to  tree  in 
search  of  food,  or  they  retired  to  artificial  hills  of  shells, 
piled  up  by  preceding  generations,  where  they  starved, 
or  fed  as  they  could  by  fishing  excursions. 

In  many  of  its  parts,  the  country  was  nothing  but  a 
thin  coat,  one  foot  thick,  of  alluvial  soil,  kept  together 
on  the  surface  of  the  water  by  the  intermingled  tegu- 
ments of  bind-weeds  and  the  roots  of  other  plants,  so 
that  if  one  walked  on  this  crust,  he  made  it,  by  the 
pressure  of  the  weight  of  his  body,  heave  up  around 
him,  in  imitation  of  the  waves  of  the  sea,  and  great  was 
the  danger  of  sinking  through  this  weak  texture. 


IN  REGARD  TO  LOUISIANA.  225 

Temptingly  looking  fruits  and  berries  invited  the  taste, 
it  is  true,  but  they  were  all  poisonous.  Such  portion 
of  the  colony  as  was  not  the  production  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  therefore  a  mere  deposit  of  mud,  was  the  cre- 
ation of  the  sea,  and  consisted  in  heaps  of  sand.  Hence 
it  was  evident,  that  the  country  was  neither  fit  for  the 
purposes  of  commerce  nor  for  those  of  agriculture,  and 
could  not  be  destined  by  the  Creator  for  the  habitation 
of  civilized  man.  The  sun  was  so  intensely  hot,  that  at 
noon  it  could  strike  a  man  dead  as  if  with  a  pistol  shot : 
— it  was  called  a  stroke  of  the  sun.  Its  fiery  breath 
drew  from  the  bogs,  fens,  and  marshes  the  most  pesti- 
lential vapors,  engendering  disease  and  death.  The  cli- 
mate was  so  damp,  that  in  less  than  a  week  a  bar  of 
iron  would  be  coated  over  with  rust  and  eaten  up  by 
its  corroding  tooth.  The  four  seasons  of  the  year  would 
meet  in  one  single  day,  and  a  shivering  morning  was 
not  unfrequently  succeeded  by  a  sultry  evening.  The 
ear  was,  by  day  and  by  night,  assailed  by  the  howls  of 
wolves,  and  by  the  croakings  of  frogs  so  big  that  they 
swallowed  children,  and  could  bellow  as  loud  as  bulls. 
Sleep,  sweet  sleep,  nature's  balmy  restorer,  was  dis- 
turbed, if  not  altogether  made  impossible,  by  the  buz 
and  stings  of  myriads  of  mosquitoes,  which  thickened 
the  atmosphere  and  incorporated  themselves  with  the 
very  air  which  the  lungs  inhaled. 

In  such  a  country,  the  European  race  of  men  rapidly 
degenerated,  and  in  less  than  three  generations  was  re- 
duced from  the  best-proportioned  size  to  the  dwarfish 
dimensions  of  misshapen  pigmies.  As  soon  as  the  emi- 
grant landed,  he  was  seized  with  disease,  and  if  he  re- 
covered, the  rosy  hue  of  health  had  forever  fled  from 
his  cheeks : — his  wrinkled  and  sallow  skin  hung  loosely 
on  his  bones,  from  which  the  flesh  had  almost  entirely 
departed : — his  system  could  never  be  braced  up  again : 
p 


226  EFFECTS  OF  THE  MISREPRESENTATIONS 

and  he  dragged  on  a  miserable,  sickly  existence,  which 
fortunately  was  not  of  long  duration.  In  such  a  cli- 
mate, old  age  was  entirely  unknown,  and  the  statistical 
average  of  life  did  not  exceed  ten  years.  There,  man 
lost  the  energies  both  of  his  body  and  mind,  and 
through  the  enervating  and  baleful  influence  of  the  at- 
mosphere, soon  became  stultified  into  an  indolent  idiot. 
Even  the  brutish  creation  did  not  escape  the  inflictions 
to  which  humanity  was  subject,  and  experienced  the 
same  rapid  transformations.  Thus,  in  a  short  time, 
horses  were  reduced  to  the  size  of  sheep,  cattle  to  that  of 
rabbits,  hogs  gradually  shrunk  up  so  as  to  be  no  big- 
ger than  rats,  and  fowls  dwindled  into  the  diminished 
proportions  of  sparrows.  As  to  the  natives,  they  were 
cannibals,  who  possessed  all  the  malignity  and  magical 
arts  of  demons,  and  waged  incessant  war  against  the 
emigrants,  whose  flesh  they  devoured  with  peculiar  rel- 
ish. This  delineation  of  the  features  of  Louisiana  was 
very  different  from  those  of  the  first  portrait,  so  many 
copies  of  which  had  been  industriously  circulated 
through  France.  It  had  been  Hyperion ;  now  it  was  a 
Satyr. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  the  startling  effects  produced 
on  the  minds  of  a  people  already  in  a  paroxysm  of  con- 
sternation, by  such  malicious  misrepresentations,  which 
the  enemies  of  Law  took  care  to  scatter  far  and  wide. 
Thus,  the  tide  of  emigration  which  was  pouring  onward 
rolled  back,  and  the  prospect  of  establishing  a  power- 
ful colony  in  Louisiana,  which,  at  first,  had  appeared  so 
feasible,  and  loomed  out  to  the  imagination  of  the  spec- 
ulator in  such  vivid  colors,  and  with  such  fair  propor- 
tions, was  nipped  in  the  bud,  and  was  looked  upon  as 
an  impossibility.  Under  the  exaggerated  and  gloomy 
apprehensions  of  the  moment,  no  actual  tender  of  money, 
and  no  promises  of  future  reward,  could  have  tempted 


OF  LAW'S  ENEMIES.  227 

any  body  to  embark  for  Louisiana.  So  universal  was 
the  terror  inspired  by  the  name  of  the  Mississippi,  that 
(it  is  a  well-known  fact)  it  became  even  a  bugbear  of 
the  nursery,  and  that  for  half  a  century  after  the  ex- 
plosion of  Law's  great  Mississippi  scheme,  when  French 
children  were  unruly  and  unmanageable,  and  when  all 
threats  had  proved  ineffectual,  the  mother  would,  in 
the  last  resort,  lift  up  her  finger  impressively,  and  in  a 
whispering  tone,  as  if  afraid  of  speaking  too  loud  of 
something  so  horrible,  would  say  with  a  shudder,  and 
with  pale  lips  to  her  rebellious  progeny  :  "  Hush !  or  I 
will  send  you  to  the  Mississippi !"  The  child  looked 
imploringly  into  his  mother's  face,  his  passion  vanished, 
his  cries  and  sobs  were  stifled,  and  under  the  soft  kisses 
of  maternal  affection,  coupled  with  the  assurance  that 
he  never  would  be  sent  to  the  Mississippi,  he  fell  into 
gentle  and  undisturbed  sleep. 

However,  the  Western  or  Mississippi  Company  hav- 
ing contracted  the  obligation  to  colonize  Louisiana,  and 
to  transport  thither,  within  a  fixed  time,  a  certain  num- 
ber of  emigrants,  found  itself  under  the  necessity,  in 
order  to  comply  with  the  terms  of  its  contract,  to  have 
recourse  to  the  most  iniquitous  and  unlawful  means. 
As  it  was  indispensable  that  there  should  be  emigration 
— when  it  ceased  to  be  voluntary,  it  was  necessary 
that  it  should  be  forced.  Thus  violence  was  resorted 
to,  and  throughout  France  agents  were  dispatched  to 
kidnap  all  vagrants,  beggars,  gipsies,  or  people  of  the 
like  description,  and  women  of  bad  repute.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  power  given  by  the  government  to  these 
agents  of  the  company  was  abused  in  the  most  in- 
famous manner.  It  became  in  their  hands  an  engine 
of  peculation,  oppression,  and  corruption.  It  is  incredi- 
ble what  a  number  of  respectable  people  of  both 
sexes  were  put,  through  bribery,  in  the  hands  of  these 


228  MEANS  RESORTED  TO  BY  THE  COMPANY. 

satellites  of  an  arbitrary  government,  to  gratify  private 
malice  and  the  dark  passions  or  interested  views  of  men 
in  power.  A  purse  of  gold  slipped  into  the  hand,  and  a 
whisper  in  the  ear,  went  a  great  way  to  get  rid  of  obnox- 
ious persons,  and  many  a  fearful  tale  of  revenge,  of  ha- 
tred, or  of  cupidity,  might  be  told  of  persons  who  were 
unsuspectedly  seized  and  carried  away  to  the  banks  of 
the  Mississippi,  before  their  voices  could  be  heard  when 
crying  for  justice,  or  for  protection.  The  dangerous 
rival,  the  hated  wife,  or  troublesome  husband,  the  im- 
portuning creditor,  the  prodigal  son,  or  the  too  long- 
lived  father,  the  one  who  happened  to  be  an  obstacle  to  an 
expected  inheritance,  or  crossed  the  path  of  the  wealthy 
or  of  the  powerful,  became  the  victims  of  their  position, 
and  were  soon  hurried  away  with  the  promiscuous  herd 
of  thieves,  prostitutes,  vagabonds,  and  all  sorts  of 
wretches  of  bad  fame  who  had  been  swept  together,  to 
be  transported  to  Louisiana. 

Guarded  by  a  merciless  soldiery,  they,  on  their  way 
to  sea-ports,  crowded  the  public  roads  of  France  like 
droves  of  cattle,  and  as  they  were  hardly  furnished  with 
means  of  subsistence  or  with  clothing  by  their  heart- 
less conductors,  who  speculated  on  the  food  and  other 
supplies  with  which  they  were  bound  to  provide  their 
prisoners,  they  died  in  large  numbers,  and  their  un- 
buried  corpses,  rotting  above  ground,  struck  with  ter- 
ror the  inhabitants  of  the  districts  through  which  the 
woe-begone  caravan  had  passed.  At  night,  they  were 
locked  up  in  barns,  when  any  could  be  found,  and  if 
not,  they  were  forced,  the  better  to  prevent  escape,  to 
lie  down  in  heaps  at  the  bottom  of  ditches  and  holes, 
and  sentinels  were  put  round  to  watch  over  them. 
Hunger  and  cold  pinched  the  miserable  creatures,  and 
their  haggard  looks,  emaciated  bodies,  and  loud  waitings, 
carried  desolation  everywhere.  Such  sights,  added  to 


LAW  SUMMONED  BEFORE  THE  PARLIAMENT.  229 

the  horrifying  descriptions  which  were  given  of  Louisiana, 
made  its  name  more  terrific  to  the  minds  of  the  people  of 
France  than  that  of  the  celebrated  Bastile  and  its  dark 
dungeons.  Dull  indeed  must  be  the  imagination  of  the 
novelist,  who,  out  of  these  strictly  historical  facts,  could 
not  extract  the  most  romantic  and  heart-rending  tales ! 
Law  was  considered  as  the  author  of  all  these  cruel- 
ties and  misfortunes,  and  he  became  still  more  odious 
to  the  people.  The  parliament  of  Paris  thought  that 
the  moment  was  come  at  last  to  pounce  upon  Law  ;  and 
to  gratify  their  long-cherished  resentment,  he  was  sum- 
moned to  appear  in  person  before  that  high  tribunal,  to 
answer  for  his  misdeeds  and  for  his  violations  of  the 
laws  of  the  kingdom.  On  his  refusal  or  neglect  to  do 
so,  the  parliament  ordered  him  to  be  arrested,  and  had 
determined,  on  his  being  brought  to  the  palace  where 
they  sat,  to  close  their  doors  ;  and  in  order  to  prevent 
the  expected  interference  of  the  Regent,  their  intention 
was  to  try  summarily  the  hated  foreigner,  and  to  hang 
him  in  their  court-yard.  Thus,  if  the  Regent,  as  it  was 
anticipated,  sent  troops  to  batter  down  the  gates  of  the 
parliament-house,  to  save  his  favorite,  they  would  arrive 
too  late,  and  would  find  there  nothing  but  a  gallows 
and  a  corpse.  Aware  of  this  plan,  Law  left  his  resi- 
dence and  fled  to  the  Regent's  palace,  which  was  the 
only  place  where  he  felt  himself  secure  against  the  pur- 
suit of  his  enemies.  There  he  cast  himself  at  the  feet 
of  his 'august  protector,  and  bathed  his  hands  with 
tears.  What  a  change  ! 

"  This  is  the  state  of  man :  to-day  he  puts  forth 
The  tender  leaves  of  hope,  to-morrow  blossoms, 
And  bears  his  blushing  honors  thick  upon  him : 
The  third  day  comes  a  frost, — a  killing  frost : 
And — when  he  thinks,  good  easy  man,  full  surely 
His  greatness  is  a  ripening — nips  his  root, 
And  then  he  falls." 


230  THE  DOWNFALL  OF  LAW. 

The  Regent  gave  to  Law  assurance  of  his  protection 
and  vouched  for  his  life ;  but  this  was  all  he  could  do. 
He  had  to  bow  to  the  force  of  public  opinion,  and  to 
bend  to  the  storm  which  menaced  even  his  royal  person. 
It  was  evident  that  Law  could  no  longer  stay  in  France. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  Regent,  irritated  at  the  presump- 
tion of  the  parliament,  exiled  that  body  to  Pontoise ; 
but  public  indignation  still  gathering  fresh  fuel  from 
that  very  circumstance,  the  Duke  of  Orleans  provided 
Law,  who  resigned  the  office  of  comptroller-general, 
with  the  means  of  escaping  out  of  the  kingdom.  On 
the  22d  of  December,  1720,  Law  arrived  at  Brussels, 
where  he  waited  for  some  time  in  the  vain  expectation 
of  being  recalled.  Far  from  it,  he  discovered,  .to  his 
dismay,  that  when  a  man  is  sliding  down  the  hill  of 
prosperity,  his  best  friends,  instead  of  endeavoring  to 
arrest  his  fall,  will  not  unfrequently  help  him  down 
with  a  kick.  Thus,  the  Great  Western  or  Mississippi 
Company,  to  which  he  had  stood  sponsor  or  godfather, 
lifted  up  a  parricidal  hand  against  him ;  and  under  the 
allegation  that  his  accounts  had  not  been  faithfully 
kept  and  rendered,  had  proceeded  to  seize  all  his  prop- 
erty, and  had  thereby  deprived  him  of  all  means  of 
subsistence.  He  did  not  lose  however  the  favor  of 
the  Regent,  who  appointed  him  minister  of  France  at 
the  court  of  Bavaria,  where  he  resided  until  the  death 
of  that  prince.  Then  he  traveled  through  many  parts 
of  Europe,  but  found  everywhere  that  dame  Fortune 
was  tired  of  smiling  upon  him.  He  became  but  too 
sensible  that  he  was  a  discarded  lover,  and  that  her 
favors  were  bestowed  on  some  other  favorite. 

In  October,  1*721,  he  returned  to  England,  and  at 
first  was  received  with  distinction  by  persons  of  high 
rank :  he  was  even  presented  to  George  the  1st.  It 
had  been  shrewdly  suspected  that  he  had  retained  a 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LAW'S  CAREER— HIS  DEATH.  231 

considerable  portion  of  his  enormous  wealth,  of  which 
it  was  presumed  that  he  had  been  prudent  enough,  in 
his  palmy  days,  to  send  a  valuable  fraction  out  of 
France.  But  when  it  was  discovered  that  he  was  re- 
duced to  beggary,  people  railed  at  his  supreme  want  of 
discretion  at  not  providing  better  for  himself,  and  they 
felt  indignant  at  the  presumptuous  cheat,  who  had  been 
wheedling  himself  into  their  society  under  the  false 
impression  that  he  wras  rich.  As  spon  as  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  he  was  poor,  it  followed  of  course  that  he 
was  nobody,  and  no  longer  to  be  countenanced  or  no- 
ticed. Out  of  an  innumerable  host  of  friends,  the 
Countess  of  Suffolk  was  the  only  one  that  remained 
true  to  him.  Let  it  stand  on  record  in  justice  to  her 
and  for  the  honor  of  woman !  This  indeed  was  another 
of  those  but  too  striking  instances  of  the  mutability  of 
fortune  and  of  the  instability  of  friendship. 

In  1722,  John  Law  turned  his  back  upon  England 
for  the  last  time,  and  returning  to  the  Continent,  re- 
tired to  Venice,  where  he  lived  in  obscurity,  and  where 
he  died  on  the  21st  of  March,  1729,  in  a  state  of  indi- 
gence, and  in  the  fifty-eighth  year  of  his  age.  He  had 
lost  his  wife  and  his  only  son,  and  there  remained  with 
him  to  solace  his  last  moments  but  one  faithful  heart,  a 
sweet  Antigone,  who  closed  his  eyelids.  That  was  his 
daughter.  She  afterward  married  Lord  Wallingford 
in  England.  A  branch  of  the  family  of  Law  has  pre- 
served to  this  day  in  France  a  very  honorable  position 
in  society.  A  brother  whom  he  left  in  that  kingdom 
when  he  fled  from  it,  was  taken  under  the  special  pro- 
tection of  the  Duchess  of  Bourbon.  Through  her  favor, 
two  of  his  sons  found  employment,  in  1741,  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  East  India  Company,  and  greatly  distin- 
guished themselves.  The  eldest  one,  Law  de  Lauriston, 
rose  to  the  rank  of  major-general,  and  to  be  governor- 


232  CONCLUDING  REMARKS 

general  of  the  French  possessions  in  India.  He  left 
several  sons ;  two  perished  in  the  unfortunate  expedi- 
tion of  La  Peyrouse,  and  one  of  them  lived  to  be  known 
under  the  reign  of  Louis  the  XVIIIth,  as  Marquis  de 
Lauriston,  a  lieutenant-general  and  a  peer  of  France. 

We  have  followed  Law  through  all  the  phases  of  his 
eventful  career,  until,  crossing  with  him  the  Bridge  of 
Sighs,  we  have  left  him  dying  in  Venice,  "  that  sea 
Cybele  with  her  tiara  of  towers — the  revel  of  the 
earth — the  masque  of  Italy."  A  fit  tomb  for  such  a 
man  !  Now  that  the  last  act  of  this  varied  drama  has 
been  played,  let  the  curtain  drop,  leaving  to  the  judg- 
ment of  impartial  posterity  the  memory  of  John  Law 
of  Edinburgh. 


SECOND  LECTURE, 

BlENVILLE  APPOINTED  GOVERNOR  OF  LOUISIANA  FOE  THE  SECOND  TIME,  IN  THE  PLACE 
OF  L'EPINAY — FOUNDATION  OF  NEW  ORLEANS — EXPEDITION  OF  ST.  DENIS,  BEAU- 
LIEU,  AND  OTHERS  TO  MEXICO ADVENTURES  OF  ST.  DENIS LAND  CONCESSIONS 

— SLAVE-TRADE — TAKING  OF  PENSACOLA  BY  THE  FRENCH — THE  SPANIARDS  RE- 
TAKE IT,  AND  BESIEGE  DAUPHINE  ISLAND — PENSACOLA  AGAIN  TAKEN  BY  THE  FRENCH 

— SITUATION  OF  THE  COUNTRY  AS  DESCRIBED  BY  BIENVILLE — THE  CHEVALIER  DBS 
GRIEUX  AND  MANON  LESCAUT — CHANGES  IN  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  JUDICIARY 
— EDICT  IN  RELATION  TO  COMMERCE — ADVENTURES  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE 
OF  BRUNSWICK,  OF  BELLE  ISLE,  AND  OTHERS — SEAT  OF  GOVERNMENT  TRANSFERRED 
TO  NEW  ORLEANS— MISCELLANEOUS  FACTS  AND  EVENTS  FROM  1718  TO  1722. 

IN  the  last  lecture,  we  examined  the  effects  produced 
in  France  by  the  creation  of  the  Mississippi  Company, 
and  by  the  operations  of  Law's  gigantic  system  of  finan- 
ces. Let  us  now  proceed  to  ascertain  what  influence 
they  had  on  the  prosperity  and  destinies  of  Louisiana, 
and  to  record  the  series  of  events  accompanying  the 
colonization  of  the  country. 

I  have  already  said  that  Law,  who  was  the  director- 
general  of  the  Royal  Bank  of  France,  was  also  appointed 
director-general  of  the  Mississippi  Company.  The  other 
directors  were,  D'Artaguette,  receiver-general  of  the 
finances  of  Auch ;  Duche,  receiver-general  of  the  finan- 
ces of  La  Rochelle ;  Moreau,  deputy  representative  of 
the  merchants  of  St.  Malo ;  Piou,  also  the  commercial 
representative  and  deputy  of  Nantes;  Castaignes  and 
Mouchard,  merchants  of  La  Rochelle. 

The  company,  being  thus  organized,  sent  three  vessels 
to  Louisiana,  with  three  companies  of  infantry  and  sixty- 
nine  colonists,  who  landed  on  the  9th  of  March,  IT  18, 


234:       COMMENCEMENT  OF  BIENVILLE'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

and  who,  by  their  presence  and  the  information  they 
brought,  revived  the  hope  of  better  days.  The  office 
of  Governor  of  Louisiana  was  definitively,  and  for  the 
second  time,  granted  to  Bienville,  as  successor  to  L'Epi- 
nay,  who  exercised  his  powers  only  for  a  few  months, 
during  which  he  made  himself  very  unpopular,  by  pro- 
hibiting the  sale  of  spirituous  liquors  to  the  Indians. 
The  humanity  of  this  provision  did  not  seem  to  strike 
the  colonists  as  forcibly  as  their  ruler,  and  failed  to  out- 
weigh other  considerations.  They  complained  of  the 
want  of  policy  displayed  in  that  ordinance,  and  they 
represented,  no  doubt  with  truth,  that  the  selling  of 
French  brandy  was  the  most  profitable  article  of  com- 
merce which  they  could  command,  and  their  most  pow- 
erful source  of  influence  over  the  Indian  nations.  It 
was,  therefore,  with  great  satisfaction,  that  the  colonists 
learned  the  nomination  of  Bienville.  Besides,  he  had 
passed  nineteen  years  in  the  colony,  of  which  he  was 
one  of  the  founders :  and  familiar  with  all  its  resources 
and  wants,  he  had  endeared  himself  to  all  the  inhab- 
itants, every  one  of  whom  he  knew  personally. 

The  first  act  of  Bienville's  new  administration  was  an 
important  one.  It  was  to  select  the  most  favorable 
place  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  for  the  location 
of  the  principal  establishment  of  the  colony.  He  chose 
the  spot  where  now  stands  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  and 
he  there  left  a  detachment  of  fifty  men  to  prepare  the 
ground  and  erect  barracks  or  sheds.  The  geography 
of  the  country  shows  it  to  have  been  the  most  judicious 
choice,  and  the  present  importance  of  New  Orleans  tes- 
tifies to  the  sagacity  of  Bienville.  In  so  doing,  he 
showed  not  only  foresight  and  perspicacity,  but  also 
great  firmness  and  independence :  because  he  dared  to 
act  against  the  predilections  of  his  government,  which 
had  a  strong  leaning  for  Manchac,  where  a  natural  com- 


HE  FOUNDS  THE  CITY  OF.NEW  ORLEANS.  235 

munication  was  open  with  the  lakes  through  bayou 
Manchac  and  the  river  Amite. 

The  space  now  occupied  by  New  Orleans  was  then 
entirely  covered  with  one  of  those  primitive  forests 
with  which  we  are  so  familiar.  Owing  to  the  annual 
inundations  of  the  river,  it  was  swampy  and  marshy, 
and  cut  up  with  a  thousand  small  ravines,  ruts,  and 
pools  of  stagnant  waters  when  the  river  was  low.*  The 
site  was  not  inviting  to  the  physical  eye,  but  Bienville 
looked  at  it  with  the  mind's  vision.  His  intellect  hov- 
ered over  the  whole  country,  from  his  native  valleys 
of  Canada,  down  the  Mississippi,  in  the  footsteps  of  La 
Salle,  through  those  boundless  regions  whose  commer- 
cial emporium  he  foresaw  that  New  Orleans  was  des- 
tined to  be.  Were  I  a  painter,  I  would  delight  in 
delineating  and  fixing  on  living  canvas  the  scene  which 
my  imagination  conjures  up. 

Bienville  had  arrived  with  his  sturdy  companions  on 
the  preceding  evening;  and  now  the  sun  is  peeping 
through  his  eastern  curtains,  and  flings  a  glow  of  ra- 
diancy over  the  dawning  beauty  of  the  morning  land- 
scape. In  obedience  to  the  command  received,  fifty 
axes  have,  in  concert,  struck  fifty  gigantic  sons  of  the 
forest.  With  folded  arms  and  abstracted  look,  Bien- 
ville stands  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  and  seems,  from 
the  expression  of  his  face,  to  be  wrapped  up  in  the  con- 
templation of  some  soul-stirring  fancies.  Perhaps  he 
had  glimpses  of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  city  of  his 
creation,  and  was  blessed  with  the  revealed  prospect  of 
its  future  grandeur.  Far  aloft,  above  his  head,  the 
American  eagle  might  have  been  observed  towering 
with  repeated  gyrations,  and  uttering  loud  shrieks 
which  sounded  like  tones  of  command.  Of  the  Indian 
race  only  one  representative  was  there.  It  was  an  old 
sibyl-looking  woman,  who  had  the  wild  glance  of  in- 


236  EXPEDITION  OF  BEAULIEU  AND  OTHERS 

sanity  or  of  divination ;  and  with  the  solemn  gesticula- 
tions of  prophetic  inspiration,  she  kept  singing  an 
uncouth  sort  of  chant,  in  which  she  said  that  the  time 
of  which  she  had  been  warned  by  the  Great  Spirit  had 
come  at  last:  that  her  death-hour  was  approaching, 
which  was  to  be  on  the  day  when  white  men  were  to 
take  possession  of  the  spot  where  she  had  dwelt  during 
a  hundred  summers  and  winters,  and  when  they  would 
cut  down  the  oak,  under  the  shade  of  which  she  had 
indulged  so  long  her  solitary  musings.  "The  Spirit 
tells  me,"  so  she  sang,  "  that  the  time  will  come,  when 
between  the  river  and  the  lake  there  will  be  as  many 
dwellings  for  the  white  man  as  there  are  trees  standing 
now.  The  haunts  of  the  red  man  are  doomed,  and  faint 
recollections  and  traditions  concerning  the  very  exist- 
ence of  his  race  will  float  dimly  over  the  memory  of 
his  successors,  as  unsubstantial,  as  vague  and  obscure 
as  the  mist  which  shrouds,  on  a  winter  morning,  the 
bed  of  the  father  of  rivers." 

I  said  before,  that,  on  the  return  of  St.  Denis  to 
Mobile,  in  1716,  after  his  adventures  in  Mexico,  a  vain 
attempt  had  been  made  by  Crozat  to  open  commercial 
relations  with  the  Spanish  provinces  of  North  America, 
and  that  he  had  dispatched,  with  that  object  in  view, 
three  Canadians  named  Delery,  Lafreniere,  and  Beau- 
lieu.  They  were  hardly  on  their  way  to  accomplish 
their  mission,  when  they  were  joined  by  the  indefati- 
gable and  persevering  St.  Denis.  At  Natchitoches  they 
procured  mules  and  horses,  and  with  them  continued 
their  march  onward.  When  they  reached  the  first 
village  of  the  Assinais,  where  it  became  necessary  for 
them  to  rest  awhile,  and  to  lay  in  a  stock  of  provisions, 
St.  Denis,  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  lately  left 
his  wife  at  the  Presidio  del  Norte  shortly  after  his  mar- 
riage, and  who  had  reluctantly  torn  himself  from  her 


TO  THE  SPANISH  SETTLEMENTS.  237 

embraces  to  discharge  the  duty  of  rendering  to  the 
French  governor  at  Mobile  an  account  of  his  expedi- 
tion, could  not  brook  any  further  delay,  and  leaving 
abruptly  his  traveling  companions,  continued  to  move 
forward  with  a  small  retinue  of  followers,  but  with  a 
considerable  number  of  bales  of  merchandise.  The 
gallant  knight,  the  lately  appointed  captain  in  the 
French  army,  had  assumed  the  garb  and  the  occupation 
of  a  merchant,  and  thought  himself  fully  adequate  to 
the  fulfillment  of  the  duties  incumbent  on  such  a  com- 
bination of  characters. 

When  Beaulieu,  Delery,  and  Lafreniere  arrived  at  the 
Presidio,  they  were  informed  of  the  seizure  of  the  goods 
and  merchandise  of  St.  Denis  by  the  Spanish  authori- 
ties, and  of  his  departure  for  Mexico  in  the  hope  of 
obtaining  the  restoration  of  his  property.  Dismayed 
at  such  a,  piece  of  intelligence,  and  afraid  of  the  seizure 
of  their  own  goods,  they  intrusted  them  for  safe  keep- 
ing to  some  monks  who  did  not  scruple  to  turn  an 
honest  penny  by  granting  their  protection  to  the  help- 
less, and  they  at  last  succeeded  in  selling  on  credit 
every  thing  they  had  on  hand  to  certain  merchants  of 
Bocca  de  Leon.  They  were  patiently  waiting  for  pay- 
ment, when  they  heard  the  unwelcome  news  that  St. 
Denis  had  been  imprisoned  at  Mexico.  Delery,  Beau- 
lieu,  and  Lafreniere  no  longer  thought  of  securing  the 
payment  of  the  money  to  which  they  were  entitled,  but 
of  saving  their  persons  from  the  tender  mercies  of  a 
Spanish  jailer.  Carrying  away  paper  recognizances  and 
bonds  which  were  never  paid,  they  departed  with  the 
utmost  precipitation,  and  had  the  good  luck  to  arrive 
in  safety  at  Mobile  in  IT  18,  after  an  absence  of  nearly 
two  years,  and  after  having  encountered  all  the  fatigues 
and  accidents  of  a  long  and  perilous  journey. 

Let  us  now  accompany  St.  Denis  to  Mexico.     He  is 


238  ADVENTURES  OF  ST.  DENIS  IN  MEXICO. 

one  of  those  men  whom  it  is  pleasant  for  the  historian 
to  keep  in  sight.  Unfortunately  for  him,  when  he  en- 
tered the  gates  of  that  city,  he  had  no  longer  to  deal 
with  the  Duke  of  Linares,  who  had  treated  him  for- 
merly with  such  extraordinary  kindness.  The  successor 
of  the  duke  was  the  Marquis  of  Valero,  whose  disposi- 
tions did  not  prove  to  be  so  favorable.  For  some  time, 
however,  St.  Denis  entertained  the  hope  that  he  would 
obtain  an  order  setting  aside  the  seizure  of  his  goods. 
But  it  so  happened  that  he  had  traversed  the  province 
of  Texas  without  presenting  his  respects  to  the  gover- 
nor, Don  Martin  de  Alacorne,  and  without  endeavoring 
to  propitiate  his  favor.  This  Spanish  functionary, 
who  was  very  punctilious  in  all  matters  of  etiquette, 
construed  St.  Denis'  haste,  forgetfulness,  or  want  of  cer- 
emony into  a  slight  on  his  dignity  and  authority ;  and 
drawing  the  inference  that  a  man  so  deficient  in  man- 
ners and  knightly  courtesy  could  not  be  but  some  low- 
born desperado,  he  wrote  to  his  government  that  St. 
Denis  was  a  suspicious  character,  fraught  with  hostile 
and  dangerous  designs.  This  was  enough  to  awaken 
the  jealous  susceptibilities  of  the  viceroy,  when  the 
settled  policy  of  Spain,  as  it  is  well  known,  was  so 
averse  to  the  introduction  of  strangers  into  her  colonies. 
Don  Martin's  denunciation  was  believed,  and  St.  Denis 
was  thrown  into  prison.  There  he  pined  for  a  whole 
month,  but  his  friends  and  his  wife's  relations  were 
active  on  his  behalf,  and  not  only  was  he  released,  but 
he  obtained  possession  of  his  goods,  which  were  sold 
very  advantageously.  They  were  not  only  sold,  but 
paid  for.  This  was  sunshine  at  last,  but  a  cloud  inter- 
vened in  the  shape  of  a  roguish  agent  who  received  the 
money,  and  who,  thinking  it  convenient  to  keep  for  his 
own  uses  what  belonged  to  another,  absconded  to  un- 
known parts. 


ESCAPE  OF  ST.  DENIS  FROM  MEXICO.        239 

St.  Denis  was  a  gentleman  by  birth,  a  soldier  by 
profession,  and  a  merchant  by  accident,  otherwise  he 
would  have  been  more  used  to  such  untoward  events, 
and  he  would  have  been  less  indignant  at  the  gentle, 
easy,  soft  and  ordinary  process  of  fattening  one's  purse 
at  the  expense  of  another's.  But,  exasperated  by  the 
series  of  mishaps  which  had  befallen  him,  he  gave  loud 
vent  to  his  complaints  of  Spanish  treachery  and  tyranny, 
and  had  the  imprudence  to  boast  of  the  desolation  he 
could  bring  on  the  frontier  provinces  of  Mexico,  if  he 
chose  to  use  the  influence  he  had  acquired  on  the  In- 
dians of  those  regions.  The  threats  of  St.  Denis  were 
not  disregarded,  and  the  government  ordered  him  to 
be  arrested.  Fortunately  he  was  advised  in  time  of 
what  was  coming,  and  the  numerous  relatives  of  his 
wife  remaining  true  to  him,  he  was  supplied  with  the 
means  of  escape.  His  flight  from  Mexico  to  the  Pre- 
sidio del  Norte,  with  his  infinite  disguises,  his  countless 
adventures,  his  romantic  concealments,  his  turnings  and 
windings  from  his  pursuers,  through  the  endless  length 
of  so  many  hundred  miles  of  a  wild  and  almost  imper- 
vious country,  would  furnish  a  prolific  subject  to  any 
driver  of  the  quill  who  might  be  in  quest  of  materials. 
Suffice  it  for  me  to  say,  that  leaving  the  Presidio  with 
his  wife,  he  reached  Mobile  in  safety,  and  rendered  to 
the  company  his  accounts  of  the  second  expedition 
which  he  had  undertaken  under  Crozat. 

The  only  benefit  which  France  derived  from  these 
daring  attempts  consisted  in  the  acquisition  of  correct 
Information  concerning  the  Spanish  settlements  which 
existed  in  the  neighborhood  of  Louisiana.  No  com- 
monplace man  was  he  who,  in  those  days,  could  journey 
twice  from  Mobile  to  Mexico,  and  come  back  through 
the  same  avenue  of  besetting  dangers  of  every  descrip- 
tion. He  must  have  been  gifted  with  a  singular  com- 


24:0        PLANS  OF  THE  COMPANY  FOR  THE 

bination  of  physical,  moral,  and  intellectual  energies. 
A  strong  mind  endowed  with  persevering  volition, 
sinews  that  could  command  any  fatigue,  a  constitution 
unconquerable  by  disease,  a  heart  ignorant  of  fear, — 
such  were  the  elements  of  the  organization  of  St.  Denis, 
who  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  characters  of  the 
early  history  of  Louisiana,  On  his  last  return  from 
Mexico,  he  remained  ever  after  in  Louisiana,  where  he 
became  the  founder  of  one  of  our  most  respectable 
families. 

Crozat  had  made  vain  efforts  to  trade  with  the  Mex- 
ican provinces,  and  to  discover  gold  and  silver  mines. 
The  company  wisely  abstained,  for  the  moment,  from 
committing  the  same  error,  and  turned  its  attention  to 
matters  which  promised  better  results.  It  was  evident 
that  the  monopoly  of  commerce  which  had  been  granted 
to  the  company,  with  a  province  of  an  immense  extent, 
it  is  true,  but  which  had  hardly  any  other  inhabitants 
than  Indian  tribes,  could  not,  after  all,  be  very  profit- 
able;  because  it  is  impossible  that  commerce,  whose 
very  breath  of  life  requires  the  two  opposite  and  equi- 
ponderant lungs  of  exportation  and  importation,  should 
exist  on  a  large  scale,  where  the  wants  of  civilization 
are  not  felt.  Agriculture,  therefore,  was  one  of  the 
first  things  to  be  encouraged  in  the  colony;  and  the 
company  thought  that  the  most  effectual  mode  of  pro- 
ducing such  a  result,  was  to  make  large  concessions  of 
lands  to  some  of  the  most  wealthy  and  'most  powerful 
personages  of  the  kingdom.  Thus,  a  concession  of 
twelve  square  miles  on  Arkansas  River,  was  granted  to 
Law,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  was  at  that  time  growing 
daily  upon  the  favor  of  the  Regent.  There  were  other 
grants  on  Yazoo  River  to  a  private  company,  composed 
of  Le  Blanc,  Secretary  of  State,  the  Count  de  Belleville, 
the  Marquis  d'Auleck,  and  of  Le  Blond,  who,  at  a  later 


ENCOURAGEMENT  OF  AGRICULTURE.  241 

period,  came  to  Louisiana  as  commander-in-chief  of  the 
engineers  of  the  province.  Near  Natchez,  the  company 
made  concessions  to  Hubert,  the  king's  commissary,  or 
commi-ssaire  ordonnateur,  and  to  a  company  of  mer- 
chants of  St.  Malo ;  at  Natchitoches  on  Red  River,  to 
Bernard  de  La  Harpe ;  at  Tunicas,  to  St.  Reine ;  at 
Pointe  Coupee,  to  de  Meuse.  The  spot  where  the 
town  of  Baton  Rouge  is  now  situated,  was  conceded  to 
Diron  d'Artaguette ;  that  part  of  the  right  bank  of  the 
Mississippi  which  is  opposite  Bayou  Manchac,  to  Paris 
Duvernay;  the  Tchoupitoulas  lands  to  de  Muys;  the 
Oumas,  to  the  Marquis  d'Ancenis:  the  Cannes  Bru- 
lees,  or  Burnt  Canes,  to  the  Marquis  d'Artagnac ;  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  river  to  de  Guiche,  de  La  Houssaye 
and  de  La  Houpe ;  the  bay  of  St.  Louis,  to  Mme.  de  Me- 
zieres,  and  Pascagoulas  Bay  to  Mme.  de  Chaumont. 

It  had  been  stipulated  between  the  company  and 
Law,  that  he  should  settle  a  colony  of  fifteen  hundred 
Germans  on  the  lands  which  had  been  granted  to  him, 
and  that  he  should  keep  up,  at  his  own  expense,  a  body 
of  infantry  and  cavalry  sufficient  to  protect  that  infant 
colony  against  the  Indians.  The  condition  of  all  the 
other  grants  of  lands  was  also  that  the  grantees  should, 
within  a  fixed  time,  colonize  those  lands  with  a  certain 
number  of  emigrants,  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  the 
grants.  This  experiment  proved  abortive  in  most  cases : 
many  of  the  landholders  whom  I  have  named,  occupied 
such  a  high  position  in  France,  that  they  had  no  induce- 
ment to  emigrate,  and  they  contented  themselves  with 
sending  some  scores  of  destitute  peasants  to  improve 
their  new  estates  in  America.  The  climate  soon  swept 
most  of  them  into  early  graves,  and  the  rest,  not  being 
placed  under  the  immediate  supervision  of  their  patrons, 
who  had  remained  abroad,  and  whose  agents  generally 
turned  out  to  be  unfaithful,  careless  or  incapable,  be- 
Q 


242  CLOSE  OF  THE  YEAR  1718. 

came  discouraged,  and  abandoned  themselves  to  habits 
of  idleness  and  dissipation. 

As  it  was  impossible,  however,  to  promote  agriculture 
without  hands  to  cultivate  the  soil,  the  company  was 
driven  into  the  necessity  of  turning  its  attention  to  the 
slave-trade,  and  to  rely  chiefly  upon  its  supplies  to  do 
all  the  field-work  in  Louisiana.  It  was  represented  that 
slave  labor  would  be  cheaper  than  free  labor,  and  would 
be  within  the  command  of  the  company  on  easier  terms. 
The  profits  of  the  trade  itself  were  a  matter  of  no  trifling 
consideration.  Vessels  were,  therefore,  sent  to  Africa, 
and  from  Africa  to  Louisianaj  with  their  black  cargoes. 
According  to  rules  established  by  the  company,  slaves 
were  to  be  sold  to  the  old  inhabitants  (so  were  called 
those  who  had  been  two  years  in  the  colony),  on  these 
terms:  one  half  cash,  and  the  balance  on  one  year's 
credit.  The  new  inhabitants  (that  is,  those  who  had 
been  less  than  two  years  in  the  colony)  had  one  and 
two  years'  credit  granted  to  them. 

In  the  month  of  June,  1718,  colonists,  convicts  and 
troops,  in  all  eight  hundred  souls,  arrived  in  three  ves- 
sels. By  the  order  of  the  company,  the  colonists  were 
distributed  in  the , following  manner:  148  at  Natchi- 
toches,  under  the  command  of  De  Laire,  Bernard  de  La 
Harpe  and  Brossard;  on  the  Yazoo  lands,  Mess.  Scouvion 
de  la  Houssaye  and  their  followers,  numbering  82.  The 
balance,  amounting  to  68,  were  settled  at  New  Orleans. 

From  a  communication  addressed  to  the  company  by 
Bienville,  on  the  25th  of  September,  it  is  to  be  inferred 
that  he  was  not  very  well  satisfied  with  the  qualifica- 
tions of  all  the  colonists  who  had  been  transported  to 
Louisiana.  "There  are  among  them,"  says  he,  "very 
few  carpenters  and  plowmen.  The  consequence  is, 
that  mechanics  and  journeymen  exact  wages  of  ten  and 
fifteen  livres  a  day.  This  is  what  retards  our  improve- 


PENSACOLA  TAKEN  BY  THE  FRENCH.  213 

ments,  and  is  a  source  of  enormous  expenses  to  the 
company." 

Thus  closed  the  year  1718,  without  any  thing  else 
worth  recording.  In  the  month  of  April,  1719,  two 
ships  of  the  company  arrived  from  France,  and  brought 
the  exciting  news  that  war  had  broke  out  between 
France  and  Spain.  At  the  same  time,  Bienville  re- 
ceived from  the  company  a  dispatch,  by  which  he  was 
advised  to  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity  which  that 
war  offered,  to  take  possession  of  Pensacola. 

Bienville  acted  on  this  occasion  with  commendable 
rapidity.  He  had  received  the  authorization,  on  the 
20th  of  April,  to  attack  Pensacola,  and  all  his  prepara- 
tions were  completed  in  a  few  days.  On  the  13th  of 
May,  his  brother,  Serigny,  who  was  employed  by  the 
French  government  in  making  a  survey  of  the  coasts  of 
Louisiana,  embarked  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  sold- 
iers, on  board  the  Philippe,  the  Comte  de  Toulouse,  and 
the  Marechal  de  Villars,  commanded  by  M.  Mechin 
and  the  Chevalier  des  Grieux,  and  set  sail  from  Dau- 
phine  Island.  Bienville,  on  the  same  day,  followed  in  a 
sloop  with  eighty  men.  On  the  14th,  they  were  before 
Pensacola,  when  at  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the 
Spanish  governor  surrendered,  without  having  attempt- 
ed any  defense.  The  command  of  Pensacola  was  given 
to  Chateaugue,  a  brother  of  Bienville.  In  conformity 
with  the  capitulation,  in  which  it  was  stipulated  that 
the  garrison  should  be  sent  to  the  nearest  Spanish  fort, 
the  Spaniards  embarked  in  the  Comte  de  Toulouse  and 
the  Marechal  de  Villars,  to  be  transported  to  Havana. 

Bienville,  who  had  left  Pensacola  under  the  com- 
mand of  Chateaugue,  felt  great  uneasiness,  produced  by 
his  apprehensions  of  not  being  able  to  retain  his  con- 
quest. What  had  been  so  easily  acquired  might  be 
as  easily  lost.  Pensacola  was  but  slenderly  fortified ; — 


244        THE  SPANIARDS  RETAKE  PENSACOLA, 

the  French,  who  composed  the  garrison  were  but  few 
iu  number,  and  not  very  select  men.  It  was  evident 
that  an  overpowering  force  might  be  sent  from  Havana, 
before  any  means  could  be  taken  by  the  company  to 
secure  its  new  acquisition.  The  fears  of  Bienville  were 
soon  realized,  and  Pensacola  only  remained  about  two 
months  in  the  hands  of  the  French.  When  the  two 
French  vessels,  the  Comte  de  Toulouse  and  the  Marechal 
de  Villars,  entered  the  port  of  Havana,  with  the  gar- 
rison of  Pensacola,  the  captain-general  of  the  island  of 
Cuba,  disregarding  the  articles  of  the  capitulation,  and 
little  heeding  the  laws  of  nations,  made  himself  guilty 
of  a  breach  of  faith,  and  took  possession  of  the  Comte 
de  Toulouse  and  the  Marechal  de  Villars.  He  put  on 
board  Spanish  soldiers  and  equipages,  and  sent  them 
back  to  retake  Pensacola,  with  three  ships  of  the  line, 
nine  brigantines,  and  landing  forces  amounting  to 
eighteen  hundred  men. 

The  Spanish  fleet  hove  in  sight  of  Pensacola  on  the 
6th  of  August,  and  the  landing  took  place  the  next 
day, — of  the  two  French  vessels  which  were  in  port, 
one  was  burned,  and  the  other  captured.  Fifty  French 
soldiers  deserted  immediately  to  join  the  Spaniards,  and 
informed  them  that  the  rest  of  their  companions  were 
ready  to  deliver  up  the  forts.  Elated  by  this  intelli- 
gence, the  Spaniards  summoned  Chateaugue  to  sur- 
render. The  French  commander,  discovering  that  he 
was  abandoned  by  his  troops,  capitulated  on  condition 
that  he  should  come  out  of  Pensacola  with  the  honors 
of  war,  and  be  transported  to  old  Spain  with  the 
French  garrison.  Immediately  after  the  surrender  of 
Pensacola,  the  commander  of  the  Spanish  fleet  put  a 
heavy  force  on  board  of  three  brigantines,  and  sent 
them  to  take  possession  of  Dauphine  Island,  and  of  the 
French  vessel,  the  Philippe,  which  was  anchored  there. 


AND  BESIEGE  DAUPHINE  ISLAND.  215 

Serigny  was  in  command  of  Dauphine  Island,  and  on 
his  "being  summoned  to  yield  to  the  superior  forces  that 
would  attack  him,  he  answered  in  the  negative,  and 
added  that  he  had  prepared  a  warm  reception  for  his 
visitors,  when  they  should  think  proper  to  come. 

As  soon  as  it  was  night,  two  of  the  brigantines  en- 
tered the  bay  of  Mobile,  and  stopping  half-way  between 
Mobile  and  Dauphine  Island,  landed  thirty-five  men  to 
plunder  and  to  burn  certain  establishments  there  exist- 
ing. The  owner  of  the  premises  was  asleep,  and  little 
dreamed  of  the  danger  which  was  at  his  doors.  Sud- 
denly, the  invaders,  confident  of  success,  and  secure  of 
their  coveted  booty,  uttered  three  cheers,  and  rushed 
forward,  intent  on  their  meditated  work  of  destruction. 
But  what  was  their  dismay,  when  they  were  answered 
with  the  unexpected  and  terrific  war-whoop  of  In- 
dians !  Before  they  could  recover  from  their  surprise, 
they  were  assailed  by  sixty  Indians  and  some  French- 
men, who,  by  the  order  of  Bienville,  were  marching  to 
the  relief  of  Serigny,  the  commander  of  Dauphine 
Island.  They  had  arrived  at  the  midway  house,  be- 
tween Mobile  and  Dauphine  Island,  just  in  time  to  save 
it  from  ruin.  Five  of  the  enemy  were  killed  and 
scalped  by  the  Indians  ;  six  were  drowned  in  attempt- 
ing to  gain  their  boats,  and  eighteen  were  made  prison- 
ers: only  six  escaped  to  carry  away  the  melancholy 
tale  of  that  night's  disaster.  Several  of  the  French  de- 
serters were  among  the  prisoners,  and  but  short  shrift 
was  allowed  them.  As  there  was  no  hangman  at  hand, 
they  were  shot. 

Two  days  after  this  event,  the  whole  Spanish  fleet 
appeared  before  Dauphiiie  Island,  which  was  defended 
only  by  one  hundred  and  sixty  Frenchmen  and  two 
hundred  Indians,  under  the  command  of  Serigny.  Of 
the  160  Frenchmen,  80  were  soldiers,  and  no  more  to 


246          THE  SIEGE  OF  DAUPHINE  ISLAND  ABANDONED. 

be  relied  on  than  those  who  had  deserted  from  Pensa- 
cola.  Serigny  had  ordered  the  French  ship,  .the 
Philippe,  to  anchor  within  pistol-shot  of  the  shore,  and 
her  fire  was  supported  by  a  powerful  barbet  battery 
constructed  on  the  island.  These  means  of  defense 
appeared  so  formidable,  that  the  Spaniards  dared  not 
come  to  a  close  attack,  but  keeping  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  French  projectiles,  amused  themselves,  during  four- 
teen days,  with  a  vain  and  empty  cannonading.  Al- 
though they  did  not  venture  to  bear  down  direct  upon 
the  village  itself,  which  was  so  well  fortified,  they  made 
more  than  one  attempt  to  land  on  several  other  parts 
of  the  island  ;  but  they  were  met  and  foiled  at  every 
point.  In  these  several  attempts  at  landing,  their  losses 
proved  to  be  very  great.  Disheartened  by  these  re- 
peated failures,  the  Spaniards  abandoned  the  siege  of 
Dauphine  Island  on  the  26th  of  August,  and  returned 
to  Pensacola.  Considering  the  disparity  of  forces,  the 
defense  of  Dauphine  Island  by  Serigny  was  a  very  gal- 
lant deed. 

The  Spanish  sails  had  hardly  vanished  from  the  ho- 
rizon of  Dauphine  Island,  when  three  French  ships  of 
the  line,  under  the  command  of  the  Comte  de  Champ- 
meslin,  with  two  vessels  of  the  company,  which  they 
had  convoyed  across  the  Atlantic,  loomed  in  sight  on 
the  1st  of  September.  This  apparition  put  to  flight 
two  Spanish  brigantines  which  had  been  left  to  cut  off 
communication  between  Dauphine  Island  and  Mobile. 
Bienville  and  Serigny  his  brother  went  on  board  of 
the  admiral's  ship  as  soon  as  they  could,  and  at  their 
request  a  council  of  war  was  immediately  convened,  in 
which  it  was  determined  to  attack  the  two  forts  of  Pen- 
sacola, and  the  Spanish  fleet  which  was  in  the  bay. 
On  the  14th,  half  of  the  cargoes  being  discharged,  the 
ships  having  taken  in  a  new  supply  of  pro  visions,  water, 


PEXSACOLA  AGAIN  TAKEN  BY  THE  FRENCH.      247 

and  wood,  and  Bienville  having  had  time  to  gather, 
equip,  and  organize  a  small  army  of  Indians,  the  expe- 
dition departed  for  Pensacola.  Two  hundred  and  fifty 
soldiers  had  been  embarked  on  board  of  the  ships,  and 
Bienville  went  in  boats  to  Perdido  River,  with  such 
regulars  and  volunteers  as  he  could  bring  together. 
There  he  found,  agreeably  to  his  instructions,  five 
hundred  Indians,  headed  by  M.  de  La  Longueville. 
Without  loss  of  time,  he  proceeded  to  invest  what  was 
called  the  GREAT  FOKT,  situated  on  the  main  land,  so 
as  effectually  to  prevent  all  ingress  or  egress.  On  the 
lYth,  M.  de  Champmeslin  entered  the  bay,  and  attacked 
the  Small  Fort,  which  was  on  the  point  of  the  island 
of  St.  Rose,  and  the  four  ships  and  five  brigantines 
which  were  anchored  under  the  protection  of  the  land 
fortifications.  The  fort  and  the  fleet  surrendered  after 
a  severe  fight  which  lasted  two  hours.  The  larger  fort, 
which  was  besieged  by  Bienville,  no  longer  thought  of 
further  resistance,  and  opened  its  gates  to  the  French, 
who  made  fifteen  hundred  prisoners.  "  The  Indians," 
says  Bienville  in  his  dispatch,  "  were  frightened  at  the 
number  of  the  forces  they  had  dared  to  encounter  and 
had  contributed  to  conquer,  and  could  hardly  believe 
the  evidence  of  their  own  senses.  It  is  clear  that  they 
are  vividly  impressed  with  the  conviction  of  the  irre- 
sistible power  of  our  arms  and  of  French  valor."  The 
fact  is,  that  it  was  a  glorious  victory  which  elated  the 
whole  colony,  and  for  many  years  what  was  called  the 
Pensacola  war,  remained  a  favorite  topic  of  conversa- 
tion, and  a  subject  of  proud  recollection  which  furnished 
the  theme  of  more  than  one  tale  of  valor  and  military 
achievements. 

On  board  of  the  captured  Spanish  ships  thirty-five 
of  the  French  deserters  from  Pensacola  were  found. 
On  their  being  tried,  twelve  were  sentenced  to  be 


248        BIENVILLE'S  APPEAL  TO  THE  COUNCIL  OF  STATE. 

hung,  and  the  rest  to  work  for  life  on  the  galleys  of 
France. 

Bienville  availed  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  com- 
plain, with  great  force  and  truth,  of  the  materials  which 
were  put  at  his  disposal  to  colonize  Louisiana.  "  The 
Council  of  State,"  says  he,  "  will  permit  me  to  represent 
that  it  is  exceedingly  painful  for  an  officer,  who  is  intrust- 
ed with  the  destinies  of  a  colony,  to  have  nothing  better 
to  defend  her  than  a  band  of  deserters,  of  smugglers,  and 
of  rogues,  who  are  ever  ready,  not  only  to  abandon  their 
flag,  but  to  turn  their  arms  against  their  country.  Are 
not  most  of  the  people  I  receive  here  sent  by  force  ? 
What  attachment  can  they  conceive  for  a  colony  which 
they  look  upon  in  the  light  of  a  prison,  and  which  they 
can  not  leave  at  will  ?  Can  it  be  imagined  that  they 
will  not  use  every  effort  to  escape  from  a  position  which 
is  odious  to  them?  And  is  it  not  known  that  they 
can  do  so  with  great  facility  in  a  country  so  open  as 
this,  and  when  they  can  so  readily  find  refuge  with  the 
Spaniards  or  the  English  ?  It  seems  to  me  absolutely 
necessary,  if  it  be  wished  to  preserve  this  colony  to  the 
king,  to  send  to  it  none  but  those  who  are  willing,  and 
to  make  life  here  more  attractive  than  it  is  for  the  pres- 
ent. In  the  first  place,  in  order  to  accomplish  this  ob- 
ject, I  would  recommend  to  transport  here  a  sufficient 
number  of  cattle  to  supply  the  colony  with  fresh  meat, 
and  then  to  transmit  provisions  of  every  kind  with 
more  regularity  and  in  greater  quantity  than  for  the 
past.  If  not,  the  people  here  will  continue  to  be  ex- 
ceedingly miserable.  It  must  also  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration that  the  population  and  the  military  forces 
are  so  scattered,  that  in  a  case  of  sudden  emergency,  I 
have  to  rely,  as  means  of  defense,  only  on  the  Indian 
nations.  For  the  present,  I  am  even  deprived  of  this 
resource  on  account  of  the  want  of  provisions  and  mer- 


STORY  OF  THE  CHEVALIER  DES  GRIEUX,  2i9 

cliandise  to  secure  their  support.  But,  backed  by  them, 
we  could  resist  all  the  efforts  of  the  Spaniards,  although 
they  could  act  powerfully  against  us,  on  account  of  the 
proximity  of  Havana  and  Vera  Cruz.  It  is  to  be 
feared,  however,  that  by  cruising  with  large  vessels  on 
our  coast,  they  may  cut  off  our  supplies  from  France. 
We  know  this  to  be  their  intention,  from  what  we  have 
learned  from  the  French  deserters  we  have  retaken. 
In  that  case,  it  would  be  impossible  to  preserve  the 
colony." 

Thus  ended  the  second  expedition  against  Pensacola. 
De  Lisle,  one  of  the  lieutenants  of  the  ships  of  the  line, 
was  put  by  the  French  admiral  in  command  of  the 
place,  somewhat  to  the  mortification  of  Bienville,  who 
thought  that  the  disposal  of  this  appointment  ought  to 
have  been  left  to  him  as  governor  of  the  colony. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Chevalier  de  Grieux  or  des 
Grieux,  who  commanded  the  Marechal  de  Villars  in  the 
first  expedition  against  Pensacola.  Perhaps  he  was 
connected  by  blood  as  well  as  by  name  with  the  hero 
of  a  beautiful  novel  well  known  in  the  literary  world, 
under  the  title  of  Manon  Lescaut,  and  written  by  an 
abbe  of  the  name  of  Prevost.  Manon  Lescaut  was  one 
of  those  frail  creatures  who,  in  such  capitals  as  Paris 
and  London,  run  a  sinful  career  of  alternate  splendor 
and  misery.  She  had  become  celebrated  by  the  duels 
and  ruinous  extravagances  of  those  who  had  worshiped 
at  her  shrine,  and  who,  to  use  the  expression  of  De- 
mosthenes, had  "  purchased  repentence  too  dear." 


"  Ah,  vice !  how  soft  are  thy  voluptuous  ways  1 
While  boyish  blood  is  mantling,  who  can  'scape 
The  fascination  of  thy  magic  gaze  ? 
A  cherub  hydra  round  us  dost  thou  gape, 
And  mold  to  every  taste  thy  dear  delusive  shape."          BTBON. 


250  STORY  OF  THE  CHEVALIER  DES  GRIEUX 

Spite,  jealousy,  revenge,  or  the  desire  of  protecting 
youthful  inexperience  against  Manon's  fascinations,  des- 
ignated her  to  the  arbitrary  hand  of  power,  and  she 
was  seized  by  those  agents  of  the  government  who 
were  recruiting  for  the  colonization  of  Louisiana.  Torn 
from  the  lascivious  chambers  of  luxury,  she  was  thrown 
into  a  common  cart  with  a  promiscuous  company  of 
female  wretches,  and  hurried  to  a  seaport.  All  the 
way  from  Paris  to  Havre,  a  young  man  of  distinguished 
birth,  but  forgetful  of  what  wras  due  to  himself,  to  his 
family,  and  to  society,  followed  on  foot  the  vehicle 
which  contained  the  being  whom  he  loved  with  that 
intensity  of  feeling  which  produces  madness.  To  have 
stolen  interviews  with  his  mistress,  he  had  given  all  the 
money  and  all  the  trinkets  he  had  in  his  possession  to 
the  ruthless  soldiery  who  composed  her  escort.  When 
he  had  nothing  left  him  with  which  he  could  hope  to 
soften  the  obduracy  of  the  guards,  he  attempted  to 
touch  them  by  making  passionate  appeals  to  what  latent 
sensibility  might  remain  in  their  breast.  He  bore  pa- 
tiently with  their  cruel  rebukes  and  coarse  gibes ;  his 
meek  despair  might  have  disarmed  hatred  itself.  Pale 
and  haggard,  this  effeminate-looking  child  of  wealth  and 
aristocracy  tottered  along  on  the  muddy  roads,  keeping 
pace  with  the  closely-muffled  vehicle  which  carried 
away  the  object  of  his  affection.  The  frenzy  of  love 
sustained  him  against  fatigues,  hardships,  and  contume- 
lies to  which  he  was  unused.  The  soul  had  absorbed 
the  body  and  magnetized  it  into  a  state  of  feverish  som- 
nambulism. Physical  wants  became  unknown  to  him, 
or  were  not  attended  to.  In  that  journey,  how  he  ap- 
peased hunger  and  thirst,  and  tasted  of  the  sweets  of 
sleep,  none  saw  or  knew.  He  seemed  to  be  unconscious 
of  the  cold  rains  of  winter  which  poured  down  upon 
his  head,  or  of  the  snow  which  stiffened  his  garments. 


AND  MANON  LESCAUT.  251 

All  the  pitiless  elements  of  an  inclement  atmosphere 
pelted  him.  as  if  in  derision,  and  he  heeded  them  not ! 

At  last,  he  arrived  at  Havre,  and  on  his  offering  to 
embark  as  a  colonist,  his  proposition  was  accepted.  On 
board  of  a  ship,  on  the  broad  bosom  of  the  ocean,  he 
found  himself  reunited  to  his  mistress.  Alas !  that 
guilty  love  should  know  such  transports !  What  cared 
des  Grieux  for  the  roaring  of  the  winds,  for  the  gath- 
ering fury  of  the  waves,  and  for  the  black  wrath  of  the 
coming  storm !  What  cared  he  for  the  lurid  obscurity 
of  the  tempestuous  night !  Sunshine,  the  sunshine  of 
paradise,  was  in  his  soul.  The  deep  anguish  of  a  mother, 
the  malediction  of  a  father,  the  blasted  hopes  of  a  noble 
and  useful  career, — all  was  forgotten  in  the  bliss  of  the 
hour.  That  bliss,  whatever  it  was,  whether  perfect  in 
its  ecstasy,  or  whether  disturbed  by  the  stings  of  con- 
science, whether  "it  brought  with  it  airs  from  heaven, 
or  blasts  from  Jiell"  was  not  of  long  duration.  Soon 
after  her  arrival  at  New  Orleans,  Manon  Lescaut  died 
a  repentant  Magdalen,  and  with  her  dying  breath  rec- 
ommended to  des  Grieux  to  return  to  the  path  or  vir- 
tue from  which  she  had  induced  him  to  stray  but  too 
long.  With  his  own  hands,  des  Grieux  dug  the  grave 
to  which  he  consigned  the  body  of  Manon,  and  then, 
with  a  lock  of  her  hair  forever  to  be  worn  on  his  breast, 
and  with  her  memory  indelibly  impressed  on  his  soul, 
he  departed  for  France, 

"  In  helpless — hopeless — brokenness  of  heart." 

But  let  us  turn  from  the  field  of  sentiment  to  a  dryer 
one,  where  the  facts  to  be  collected  by  the  historian, 
although  no  doubt  more  deserving  of  record,  are  of  a 
less  captivating  nature :  and  let  us  not  lose  sight  of  the 
details  of  the  administration  of  affairs  in  Louisiana. 

The  directors  having  called  the  attention  of  the  gov- 


252  CHANGES  MADE  IN  THE 

eminent  to  the  changes  which  new  circumstances  re- 
quired in  the  organization  of  the  colony,  the  Superior 
Council  of  the  province  was  modified  by  a  royal  edict 
promulgated  in  the  month  of  September,  1719.  It  was 
decreed  that  the  new  council  should  be  composed  ex 
officio  of  such  directors  of  the  company  as  might  happen 
to  be  in  the  colony,  of  the  governor,  the  two  "  Lieuten- 
ants de  Roi?  or  lieutenant-governors,  the  king's  attor- 
ney-general, and  four  other  persons.  In  all  civil  suits, 
the  quorum  was  fixed  at  three,  and  at  five  in  criminal 
affairs.  In  case  no  quorum  could  be  formed,  on  account 
of  absence  or  disease,  the  members  present  could  com- 
plete the  number  required,  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  most 
respectable  persons  of  the  colony.  In  judicial  matters, 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  council  was  to  be  only  an  appel- 
late one,  and  it  was  bound  to  meet  at  least  once  in  every 
month.  Formerly,  the  Superior  Council  had  been  the 
only  tribunal  in  the  country,  and  had  been  clothed  with 
original  jurisdiction :  but  population  having  increased 
considerably,  it  was  found  necessary  to  establish  inferior 
courts,  and  to  appoint  as  judges  the  directors  of  the 
company,  or  their  agents  in  the  several  localities  where 
they  might  reside.  Every  one  of  them,  with  two  of  the 
chief  men  of  the  vicinage,  might  take  cognizance  of  any 
civil  affair,  and  also  of  criminal  matters,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  four  inhabitants  having  the  qualifications  re- 
quired to  sit  in  civil  affairs.  From  their  judgment 
there  lay  an  appeal  to  the  Superior  Council.  It  is  to 
be  remarked  that,  by  a  special  and  a  very  liberal  dis- 
position of  the  royal  edict,  justice  was  to  be  adminis- 
tered without  costs  to  the  parties. 

The  first  Superior  Council,  as  formed  in  conformity 
with  this  edict,  was  composed  of  Bienville,  as  governor, 
of  Boisbriant  and  Chateaugue,  as  lieutenant-governors, 
or  lieutenants  de  roi,  of  Hubert,  the  king's  commissary, 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  JUDICIARY.  253 

or  commissaire  ordonnateur,  who  was  appointed  senior 
member  of  the  council,  and  as  such  with  priority  of 
rank  over  his  puisne  colleagues:  the  other  members 
were  L'Archambault,  Villardo  and  Legas,  agents  of  the 
company,  and  the  king's  attorney-general,  Cartier  de 
Baune.  Couture  was  appointed  clerk  to  the  council. 

Although  the  governor  occupied  the  seat  of  honor  at 
the  council  board,  yet  the  senior  councilor  was  the 
actual  president  of  that  body.  By  collecting  the  votes, 
he  ascertained  the  sense  of  the  tribunal,  and  he  pro- 
nounced its  judgments.  In  all  preliminary  proceedings, 
such  as  the  affixing  of  seals,  inventories,  and  other  acts 
of  the  like  nature,  he  discharged  the  duties  of  a  judge 
of  the  first  instance. 

It  was  the  anxious  wish  of  Bienville  to  transfer  the 
seat  of  government  to  New  Orleans,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Mississippi.  But  he  met  with  great  opposition  from 
his  associates  in  power.  When  the  matter  was  under 
discussion,  it  happened  that  there  was  an  overflow  of 
the  river,  which  laid  the  infant  city  of  New  Orleans 
under  water.  This  circumstance  gave  additional  strength 
to  the  opposition.  It  was  argued  that  the  company 
could  not,  for  the  present,  command  the  means  of  erect- 
ing the  necessary  embankments  to  prevent  the  annual 
inundations  with  which  that  settlement  would  be  threat- 
ened. Hubert,  the  king's  commissary,  pleaded  strongly 
in  favor  of  Natchez,  but  as  he  owned  large  tracts  of 
land  in  that  locality,  his  arguments  were  little  heeded, 
because  it  was  supposed  that  they  were  prompted  by 
self-interest.  L'Archambault,  Villardo  and  Legas,  who 
were  agents  of  the  company,  thought  that  the  commer- 
cial views  of  those  they  represented  would  be  better 
promoted  by  keeping  the  seat  of  government  on  the 
sea-shore.  Their  opinion  prevailed,  and  according  to 
their  wishes,  a  detachment  of  soldiers  and  of  mechanics 


254:  SEAT  OF  GOVERNMENT  FIXED  Al   NEW  BILOXL 

was  sent  to  the  east  side  of  the  Bay  of  Biloxi,  where 
houses  and  barracks  were  ordered  to  be  constructed. 
That  place  was  called  New  Biloxi,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  first  settlement  which  was  made  in  that  bay,  and 
which  was  ever  after  known  as  Old  Biloxi. 

The  time  had  come  at  last  when  the  colony  was  be- 
ginning to  assume  the  shape  of  definite  existence.  It 
was  still  very  weak,  it  is  true,  but  it  gave  stronger 
signs  of  vitality  than  it  had  done  so  far.  The  extreme 
fertility  of  the  soil  had  invited  the  plow  and  the 
spade,  and  had  been  found  admirably  adapted  to  the 
cultivation  of  rice,  indigo,  tobacco,  and  cotton.  It  was 
almost  impossible,  however,  to  induce  Europeans  to  at- 
tend to  the  labors  of  the  field,  on  account  of  the  heat  of 
the  climate,  and  of  the  diseases  which  were  produced  by 
exposure.  The  whole  agricultural  pursuits  of  the 
country  were  therefore  carried  on,  at  that  time,  by  one 
thousand  blacks,  whom  the  company  had  caused  to  be 
transported  from  Africa  to  Louisiana.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  agriculture  and  commerce  did  not  solely 
engross  the  attention  of  the  directors.  But  the  ex- 
perience which  had  been  acquired  during  the  twenty 
preceding  years  since  the  foundation  of  the  colony,  and 
which  had  acted  as  a  check  on  the  wild  hopes  of  some 
of  the  directors,  had  not  brought  to  the  minds  of  all 
the  conviction  that  it  was  wiser  to  abandon  altogether 
the  costly  and  time-losing  researches  which  had  been 
made  for  mines  of  precious  metals.  Hence  the  renewal 
of  similar  attempts,  which  proved  equally  abortive. 

On  the  26th  of  November,  a  royal  edict  was  issued 
in  conformity  with  the  charter  granting  to  the  company 
the  privilege  of  exclusive  commerce  with  Louisiana. 
That  edict  declared  to  the  world  that  any  other  vessels 
than  those  of  the  company  would,  on  their  resorting  to 
the  colony  for  the  purposes  of  trade,  incur  forfeiture 


EDICT  IN  RELATION  TO  COMMERCE  OF  THE  COLONY.        255 

and  confiscation.  Such  were  the  events  of  1719,  among 
which  the  most  considerable  was  the  conquest  of  Pen- 
sacola, 

The  opening  of  the  year  1720  was  signalized  by  a 
proclamation  of  a  remarkable  nature,  issued  throughout 
the  colony  in  the  name  of  the  company.  That  procla- 
mation informed  the  inhabitants  of  Louisiana  that  they 
might  obtain  from  the  stores  of  the  company  at  Mobile, 
Dauphine  Island,  and  Pensacola,  all  the  merchandises 
and  provisions  necessary  to  their  wants.  In  case  the 
colonists  should  make  it  a  condition  of  their  purchase, 
that  those  provisions  and  merchandises  should  be  de- 
livered at  New  Orleans,  they  were  to  pay  in  addition  a 
premium  of  five  per  cent. ; — ten  per  cent,  if  to  be  de- 
livered at  Natchez ; — thirteen  per  cent,  at  the  Yazoo  ; — • 
fifty  per  cent  at  the  Missouri  and  Illinois  settlements. 
It  was  made  obligatory  upon  the  colonists  to  send  to 
New  Orleans,  to  Biloxi,  to  Ship  Island,  and  to  Mobile, 
the  produce  of  their  labor,  which  the  company  engaged 
to  purchase  at  the  following  prices :  silk,  according  to 
its  quality,  from  7i  livres  to  10  livres ;  tobacco,  first 
quality,  at  25  livres  the  hundred  pounds;  rice,  20 
livres  ;  superfine  wheat  flour,  15  livres  ;  rye,  10  livres ; 
barley  and  oats,  90  cents ;  deer  skins,  from  15  to  20 
cents  per  skin ;  if  dressed  and  without  the  head  and 
tail,  30  cents ;  hides,  8  cents  the  pound. 

It  is  evident  that  the  colony  could  not  prosper  un- 
der the  system  adopted  by  its  rulers.  What  induce- 
ments could  any  set  of  men  have  to  emigrate  to  a  coun- 
try, where  they  had  not  only  to  encounter  the  dangers 
of  a  sickly  climate  and  of  savage  warfare,  but  where 
they  were  sure  to  associate  with  the  dregs  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  mother  country,  and  to  be  kept  in  a  state 
of  the  most  oppressive  servitude  ?  They  could  pur- 
chase nothing  except  from  the  company,  at  the  prices 


256  OPPRESSIVE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  EDICT. 

fixed  by  it:  they  could  sell  to  none  except  to  the 
company,  and  at  the  prices  which  suited  its  conveni- 
ence :  and  they  could  not  go  out  of  the  colony  with 
out  its  permission.  Was  it  not  servitude — a  disguised 
servitude,  not  in  name  but  in  fact — and  much  worse 
than  the  open  and  barefaced  servitude  of  the  blacks  ? 
Where  was  the  difference  between  the  white  slaves 
transported  from  Europe,  and  the  black  ones  dragged 
from  Africa  by  the  emissaries  of  the  company  ?  If  the 
blacks  worked  only  for  the  benefit  of  their  white  mas 
ters,  both  blacks  and  whites  labored  only  for  the  uses 
and  purposes  of  the  almighty  company. 

Common  sense  and  experience  pointed  to  a  different 
course  of  action.  When  in  the  never-ceasing  wars  of 
Europe,  a  city  happened  to  be  depopulated  and  razed 
to  the  ground,  what  was  the  policy  often  pursued  by 
the  prince  within  whose  territory  it  was  situated  ?  It 
was  one  which  never  failed  to  be  successful.  The  sov- 
ereign would  solemnly  declare  that  all  those  who 
should  come  to  rebuild  the  ruined  city  should,  for  a 
considerable  number  of  years,  be  exempted  from  taxes, 
from  paying  war  contributions  in  money  and  in  men, 
and  should  enjoy  the  benefit  of  self-government,  to- 
gether with  other  franchises,  immunities  and  tempting 
liberties  of  every  kind.  There  was  such  vitality  in 
this  system,  that  the  destroyed  city  would  rise  in  a 
short  time  from  its  ashes  with  more  splendor  than  it 
had  ever  possessed.  Then,  it  is  true,  would  the  royal 
eagle,  tired  of  his  long  abstinence,  flap  his  wings  in 
triumph,  and  the  human  cattle  upon  whose  flesh  he 
claimed  the  right  to  feed,  would  perceive  too  late  that 
they  had  been  allowed  to  grow  fat  for  other  purposes 
than  their  own  gratification.  Nevertheless,  the  correct- 
ness of  the  policy  was  not  the  less  demonstrated,  and 
if  applied  to  Louisiana  would  have  produced  similar  re- 


LA  HARPE  SENT  TO  FORM  A  SETTLEMENT  IN  TEXAS.    257 

suits.  All  that  she  wanted  was  air  for  her  expanding 
young  lungs — franchises  and  immunities  of  every  sort 
instead  of  the  shackles  of  monopoly  and  of  the  fetters 
of  absolute  government — freedom  of  conscience — of 
thought — of  action — every  liberty  of  which  man  is  sus- 
ceptible in  a  state  of  civilization.  There  would  have 
been  a  rush  to  Louisiana  from  every  part  of  the  world, 
and  the  population  would  have  increased  accordingly. 
This  would  have  been  to  the  interest  of  the  colony,  un- 
doubtedly, but  it  is  not  so  clear  that  it  would  have 
served  the  selfish  and  narrow-minded  views  of  the  com- 
pany. Unfortunately,  the  colony,  instead  of  being  fos- 
tered by  such  liberal  policy,  was  kept  in  leading-strings 
so  tight,  that  she  gasped  for  breath,  and  was  restrained 
from  developing  her  energies.  The  great  mistake  was, 
that  the  company  said  to  the  colonists,  "  Work  for  me," 
instead  of  saying,  "  Work  for  your  own  benefit." 

Peace  having  been  concluded  between  France  and 
Spain,  on  the  17th  of  February,  1720,  the  Mississippi 
Company  made  another  attempt  to  establish  commer- 
cial relations  between  Louisiana  and  the  Spanish  prov- 
inces of  Mexico,  and  even  endeavored  to  push  on  its  set- 
tlements in  that  direction.  With  this  object  in  view, 
Bernard  de  La  Harpe  was  sent  to  Texas,  and  constructed, 
in  latitude  33°  25',  at  the  distance  of  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  from  Natchitoches,  a  small  fort,  with  the 
assistance  of  the  Indians,  who  hated  the  Spaniards. 
His  next  step  was  to  send  a  messenger  with  his  compli- 
ments to  Don  Martin  de  Alacorne,  governor  of  Texas, 
to  whom  he  made  propositions  relative  to  the  trade 
which  might  be  carried  on  between  the  two  nations. 
Don  Martin  made  a  courteous  reply,  but  at  the  same 
time  expressed  his  astonishment  at  the  determination 
taken  by  the  French  to  settle  in  a  province  which  was 
a  part  of  the  territory  of  Mexico.  He,  therefore,  re- 


258,      CLAIM  OF  FRANCE  TO  THE  POSSESSION  OF  TEXAS 

quested  La  Harpe  to  inform  the  governor  of  Louisiana, 
"by  whose  authority  he  acted,  that  if  the  French  did  not 
voluntarily  retire,  he  would  resort  to  force  to  compel 
them  to  keep  within  their  limits.  In  answer  to  the  as- 
tonishment manifested  by  Don  Martin  de  Alacorne,  Ber- 
nard de  La  Harpe  declared  that  he  was  equally  aston- 
ished at  the  pretensions  of  the  Spanish  government, 
considering  that  France  had  always  looked  upon  Texas 
as  a  part  of  Louisiana,  since  La  Salle  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  that  country,  which  still  retained  his  mortal  re- 
mains. He  added,  that  the  French  government  could 
not  admit  that  the  pretensions  of  Spain  could  legiti- 
mately go  beyond  the  Rio  Bravo,  because  all  the  rivers 
which  discharge  themselves  into  the  Mississippi,  and  all 
the  lands  which  they  water,  ought  indisputably  to  be 
considered  as  belonging  to  France. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  French  government 
supported  La  Harpe  in  the  position  he  had  taken,  and 
that  the  company,  with  the  express  authorization  of  the 
king,  ordered  that  possession  be  taken  of  the  Bay  of 
St.  Bernard.  This  order  was  executed  in  1*722 :  but, 
after  a  short  trial,  the  French  were  obliged  to  give  up 
the  settlement  which  they  had  established,  on  account 
of  the  implacable  hostility  of  the  Indians,  whom  they 
could  not  resist  successfully,  because  their  new  posses- 
sion was  too  far  from  their  chief  establishments  in  Lou- 
isiana, to  admit  of  ready  relief.  It  is  not  the  less  true  that 
France  always  called  in  question  the  rights  which  Spain 
pretended,  with  so  much  tenacity,  to  have  to  Texas. 

Knowing  the  activity,  the  energy,  and  the  other  qual- 
ifications of  St.  Denis,  the  company  intrusted  him  with 
the  command  of  Natchitoches.  The  rising  prosperity 
of  that  settlement  had  excited  the  jealousy  of  the  Span- 
iards, and  it  was  believed  that  they  were  meditating 
its  destruction. 


COLLISIONS  OF  FRENCH  AND  BRITISH  TRADERS.          259 

The  company  seemed  to  have  taken  to  heart  the  ob- 
ligation to  stock  Louisiana  with  the  population  of  which 
it  stood  so  much  in  need,  and  during  the  year  1720, 
more  than  one  thousand  Europeans,  and  about  five  hun- 
dred negroes,  were  transported  to  that  colony.  Of  the 
emigrants,  about  three  hundred  were  to  be  located  at 
Natchez,  sixty  on  the  concessions  of  De  Guiche,  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  were  destined  for  the  grant  of  St.  Reine, 
at  the  Tunicas,  two  hundred  and  fifty  for  the  concession 
of  Le  Blanc ;  and  the  rest  were  to  settle  at  the  Yazoos. 

Until  now,  the  colonists  had  hardly  met  with  any 
hostility  from  the  Indians,  except  from  the  Natchez,  as 
we  have  seen,  under  the  administration  of  Cadillac, 
when  Bienville  was  sent  up  the  river  by  that  governor 
to  demand  satisfaction  for  the  murder  of  several  French- 
men. But  the  moment  was  come  when  their  friend- 
ship or  indifference  was  to  be  changed  into  an  animos- 
ity productive  of  ruinous  and  disastrous  wars  to  the  col- 
onists. So  long  as  the  colony  had  remained  so  weak 
that  she  seemed  destined  to  perish  prematurely  from 
the  radical  vices  of  her  imperfect  organization,  her 
neighbors,  the  English,  had  not  thought  proper  to 
hasten  the  work  of  destruction.  But  they  took  um- 
brage at  the  more  vigorous  administration  of  the  com- 
pany, which,  in  spite  of  all  its  errors  of  policy,  was  em- 
ploying its  capital  in  efforts  calculated,  if  persisted  in, 
to  make  of  Louisiana  an  important  colonial  possession 
to  France.  England  never  sleeps  when  her  interest  is 
at  stake :  and  she  began  to  take  active  but  secret  steps 
to  check  the  progress  of  French  colonization  on  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi.;  Besides,  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish traders  used  to  rrfeet  everywhere  among  the  In- 
dians, and  their  opposition  or  competition  in  commerce 
soon  produced  a  deep  feeling  of  hostility.  Hence  origi- 
nated frequent  and  partial  collisions,  in  which  the  In- 


260  COMPLAINTS  OF  THE  COLONY. 

dians  always  took  part,  and  in  which  they  never  failed 
to  be  divided  among  themselves:  one  nation,  or  one 
part  of  a  nation,  assisting  the  English,  while  the  French, 
on  their  side,  were  not  lacking  in  the  same  kind  of 
support. 

This  state  of  things  gave  rise  to  repeated  murders, 
the  recital  of  which  would  be  but  a  bloody  and  uniform 
catalogue,  producing  much  excitement  at  the  time,  but 
of  very  little  interest  in  our  days.  Thus,  this  year  1720 
was  marked  by  a  war  of  the  French  with  the  Chicka- 
saws,  who  were  under  British  influence.  Their  first  act 
of  hostility  was  to  assassinate  a  French  officer  named 
Sorvidal,  who  had  been  stationed  among  them  by  Bien- 
ville,  as  a  spy  and  an  agent  of  the  company.  After 
long  negotiations,  backed  by  fair  promises  of  remune- 
ration in  merchandise,  Bienville  succeeded  in  opposing 
the  Choctaws  to  the  Chickasaws.  These,  and  the  Nat- 
chez, were  the  three  most  powerful  nations  with  which 
the  colony  had  to  deal,  and  we  shall  see  what  a  con- 
spicuous part  they  were  destined  to  play  in  its  history. 
The  other  smaller  Indian  tribes  remained  in  a  state  of 
neutrality. 

By  a  royal  ordinance,  the  military  forces  of  Louisi- 
ana were  fixed  at  twenty  companies  of  fifty  men  each. 
Such  were,  with  the  few  colonists  scattered  over  an 
immense  territory,  the  only  means  of  resistance  which 
Bienville  had  to  oppose  to  the  Indians,  and  to  the  other 
foes  who  might  threaten  the  colony. 

There  were  two  causes  of  complaint  on  the  part  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Louisiana,  which  the  French  government 
attempted  to  remedy.  The  first,  that  there  was  not  in 
the  colony  a  sufficient  number  of  women ;  and  the  sec- 
ond, that  the  people  who  were  sent  to  colonize  the 
country  were  of  a  character  which  made  them  dangerous 
or  contaminating  associates  for  such  men  of  peaceful 


FRENCH  COLONISTS  ARRIVE.  261 

habits  and  honest  principles  as  had  voluntarily  come  to 
better  their  fortunes  in  the  colony.  Wishing  to  re- 
dress these  grievances,  the  French  government  author- 
ized three  nuns,  Sister  Gertrude,  and  under  her,  Sister 
Louise  and  Sister  Bergere,  to  conduct  to  Louisiana  a 
certain  number  of  girls  who  were  taken  from  the  hos- 
pital-general of  Paris,  on  their  consenting  to  emigrate. 
They  were  placed  under  the  special  supervision  of  Sis- 
ter Gertrude,  and  could  not  marry  without  her  consent. 
It  was  also  ordered  by  the  king  that  convicts  and  vaga- 
bonds should  no  longer  be  transported  to  Louisiana, 
because  "  the  king  is  convinced,''  said  the  edict,  "  that 
their  presence  is  a  contagious  source  of  corruption,  not 
only  for  the  Europeans,  but  also  for  the  aborigines,  who 
are  kind-hearted,  honest,  industrious,  and  well-disposed 
toward  the  French." 

On  the  3d  of  January,  1*721,  a  ship  of  the  company 
arrived  with  three  hundred  colonists,  who  were  des- 
tined for  the  lands  granted  to  Mme.  de  Chaumont, 
at  Pascagoulas,  and  in  February,  eighty  girls,  who  had 
been  taken  from  a  house  of  correction  in  Paris,  called 
La  Salpetriere,  were  landed  in  Louisiana.  It  would 
seem  that  dissolute  women  were  not  looked  upon  as  being 
included  in  the  recent  royal  edict  which  prohibited  the 
transportation  to  Louisiana  of  vagabonds  or  persons  of 
bad  morals ;  or  it  may  be  that  this  edict,  as  it  is  fre- 
quently the  case  with  such  things,  had  been  issued 
merely  to  stand  on  paper  for  some  particular  purpose, 
but  not  to  be  executed. 

Good  or  bad,  however,  the  population  of  Louisiana 
was  fast  increasing,  and  the  French  government  thought 
it  sound  policy  that  no  agricultural  produce  should  be 
raised  in  the  colony,  which  might  compete  with  that  of 
the  mother  country,  and  issued  accordingly  an  ordi- 
nance which  prohibited  in  Louisiana  the  cultivation  of 


262  THE  DIRECTORS  OF  THE  COMPANY 

the  vine,  hemp,  flax,  &c.  &c.  Such  was  the  despotic, 
selfish,  and  short-sighted  policy  of  what  was  then  called 
the  colonial  system. 

In  spite  of  all  the  efforts  made  by  the  company,  what 
contributed  still  more  powerfully  to  retard  the  pro- 
gress of  the  colony  was  the  never-ceasing  misunder- 
standing which  had  existed  among  its  officers  since  its 
foundation.  They  were  incessantly  counteracting  each 
other  by  reciprocal  opposition.  Between  their  pulling 
backward  and  forward,  and  the  struggle  of  their  con- 
tention, the  distracted  colony  staggered  in  its  feeble 
march,  and  could  hardly  keep  its  ground.  The  reports 
made  by  the  agents  of  the  company  on  the  situation  of 
its  affairs  were  of  the  gloomiest  character.  The  dis- 
bursements were  enormous,  and  no  gains  had  hitherto 
accrued  to  the  stockholders,  whose  dissatisfaction  was 
loudly  expressed.  The  direction  was  reproached  with 
having  made  unwise  and  uncalled-for  expenses,  which 
would  never  be  productive,  and  with  having  selected 
officers  more  solicitous  about  their  own  interests  than 
those  of  the  company.  The  fall  of  Law,  and  the  crisis 
which  followed,  brought  down  still  lower  the  shares  of 
the  stockholders  in  the  Mississippi  Company,  and  their 
disappointment  became  excited  into  clamorous  rage. 
Frightened  by  the  general  burst  of  indignation  which 
assailed  them,  the  directors  wrote  to  Bienville  that  the 
Regent  had  complained  of  the  paucity  and  inefficacy  of 
his  services ;  that  they  had  excused  him  with  his  royal 
highness  on  the  ground  that  the  very  agents  of  the 
company  had  checked  or  weakened  the  execution  of  all 
his  plans;  that  they  would,  in  consequence,  change 
those  agents,  and  substitute  for  them  such  as  would  be 
entirely  his  subordinates ;  that  he  would  then  have  a 
fair  opportunity  to  show  what  he  could  do,  when  left 
to  his  own  judgment,  and  to  deserve  rewards  which 


URGE  BIENVILLE  TO  FURTHER  EXERTIONS.  263 

would  be  commensurate  with  the  merit  of  his  deeds ; 
that  none  but  real  services  would  gain  for  him  the  grade 
of  brigadier-general,  at  which  he  aimed,  and  the  great 
cross  of  St.  Louis,  which  was  the  object  of  his  wishes, 
and  which  the  Regent  had  promised  to  bestow  upon 
him  when  deserved.  The  directors  thus  hoped  to  stim- 
ulate the  ambition  of  Bienville  into  the  adoption  and 
the  carrying  on  of  a  system  of  administration  in  the 
colony,  which  might  prove  more  advantageous  to  the 
company  than  all  the  plans  which  had  hitherto  been 
pursued  without  success. 

In  the  month  of  March,  two  hundred  German  emi- 
grants arrived  in  the  colony.  They  were  sent  by  Law 
to  settle  on  his  Arkansas  concessions,  and  they  had  de- 
parted from  France  on  the  eve  of  his  flight  from  that 
kingdom.  They  were  soon  followed  by  five  hundred 
negroes  transported  from  Africa  by  the  company.  This 
was  a  valuable  addition  to  the  population  of  Louisiana, 
but  the  time  when  it  came  did  not  happen  to  be  op- 
portune, on  account  of  the  great  scarcity  of  provisions 
under  which  the  country  was  then  suffering.  With 
these  German  emigrants  there  was  a  woman  whose  des- 
tinies, if  they  be  true  as  related,  bid  defiance  to  the 
inventions  of  the  wildest  romance. 

Let  us  go  back  to  IT  12.  At  that  time,  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick  Wolfenbuttel  had  a  daughter  named  Char- 
lotte, who  was  a  paragon  of  beauty,  of  virtue,  and  of 
talent.  Who  would  not  have  loved  such  a  being? 
And  so  she  was — by  every  inhabitant  of  that  little 
duchy.  What  could  be  more  auspicious  than  the  be- 
ginning of  such  a  life !  But  at  that  time  also,  it  hap- 
pened that  Peter  the  Great  had  a  son  named  Alexis, 
who,  although  heir-apparent  to  the  crown,  and  the 
future  ruler  of  millions  of  men,  was  so  steeped  in  vice, 
so  coated  over  with  stupidity,  and  so  thoroughly  im- 


264  STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE. 

bued  with  wickedness,  that  his  father,  as  more  than  one 
father  has  done  in  such  cases,  sent  him  on  his  travels, 
perhaps  in  the  hope  that  he  would  either  mend  his  na- 
ture by  accidental  circumstances,  by  a  change  of  air  or 
of  sights,  by  a  better  knowledge  of  the  world  and  a 
more  extensive  acquaintance  with  mankind,  or  that  he 
would  break  his  neck  on  the  public  roads.  In  his  per- 
egrinations, the  Muscovite  prince  stumbled  on  the  Lil- 
liputian court  of  Brunswick,  and  savagely  brutish  as  he 
was,  he  felt  the  charm  which  the  Princess  Charlotte  ex- 
ercised on  all  that  appertained  to  the  human  creation. 
The  Tzar  Peter  heard  with  surprise  of  the  new  and 
strange  impression  which  had  been  produced  on  Alexis, 
and  he  was  led  to  think  that  his  son  was  not  altogether 
deprived  (a  thing  which  he  had  always  held  in  doubt) 
of  that  organ  which  is  called  the  heart.  Seizing  the 
occasion  by  the  forelock,  he  ordered  the  hopeful  heir 
to  the  Russian  throne  to  marry  the  German  princess. 
He  considered  that  the  bright  rays  emanating  from  the 
perfections  of  the  wife  might  penetrate  into  the  dark 
abyss  where  the  imperfections  of  the  husband  were 
pandering  to  each  other,  and  that  the  spirit  of  good 
might,  to  some  degree,  control  the  spirit  of  evil,  if 
linked  together. 

The  poor  Duke  of  Brunswick  did  not  venture  to  give 
a  denial  to  the  demand  made  by  the  haughty  and  pow- 
erful despot  of  the  North.  But  deep  was  the  gloom 
which,  on  that  occasion,  settled  over  the  whole  territory 
of  that  little  duchy,  and  the  marriage  ceremony  looked 
more  like  a  funeral  than  a  wedding.  Why  not  ?  It 
was  the  consecration  of  the  union  of  the  dead  with  the 
living — nay,  something  worse — the  hideous  conjunction 
of  the  putrefaction  of  the  charnel  with  the  ambrosial 
purity  of  heaven.  Amid  the  general  desolation,  there 
was  one  heart,  above  all,  that  was  riven  asunder,  as  if 


STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE.  265 

a  wedge  had  been  forced  into  its  very  core.  Look  at 
that  pale  face  sicklied  over  with  grief!  What  agony 
is  there  not  in  those  eyes  fixed  on  that  altar,  and  on 
that  bride,  so  lovely  and  so  sad !  How  fearfully  the 
soul  works  on  the  human  frame,  and  how  indelibly  it 
writes  a  tale  of  woe  on  that  expressive  and  plastic  tab- 
let— the  forehead  of  man !  He,  whose  quivering  lips 
denoted  the  fearful  struggle  within,  was  the  Chevalier 
d'Aubant,  a  young  Frenchman,  who  was  attached  to 
the  court  of  Brunswick,  as  an  officer  in  the  Duke's 
household.  Alas !  a  common  one  his  fate  had  been 
since  the  creation  of  woman.  He  had  so  gazed  on  the 
star  of  beauty — that  he  had  become  mad — mad  with 
love! 

Now  the  Princess  Charlotte  is  on  her  way  to  St. 
Petersburg,  and  fast  travelers  are  those  horses  of  the 
Ukraine,  the  wild  Mazeppa  horses  that  are  speeding 
away  with  her !  A  fast  traveler  is  the  Russian  bear, 
who  is  carrying  to  his  den  the  prize  he  has  won,  but  the 
real  merit  of  which  he  no  more  values,  than  a  turkey 
would  know  the  worth  of  the  diamond  picked  up  by 
chance,  for  want  of  a  brickbat,  and  swallowed  to  aid 
its  digestion.  Among  the  wild-looking  escort  of  Cos- 
sacks who  surrounded  the  princess  there  was  one,  how- 
ever, who  seemed  fully  to  appreciate  his  new  sovereign. 
With  his  shaggy  bonnet  pulled  down  to  his  eyebrows, 
and  his  tartar  cloak  closely  muffled  up  to  his  ears,  he 
rode  close  to  the  carriage  door,  with  watchful  care,  and 
seeming  to  scan  minutely  the  dangers  of  the  roads. 
Day  and  night,  he  was  at  his  post.  Whenever  the 
horses  of  the  vehicle  which  carried  the  prince  and  his 
bride  threatened  to  become  unruly,  his  hand  was  al- 
ways the  first  to  interfere  and  to  check  them ;  and  all 
other  services  that  chance  threw  in  his  way,  he  would 
render  with  meek  and  unobtrusive  eagerness ;  but  silent 


266  STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE. 

he  was  as  the  tomb.  Whenever  the  princess  alighted, 
deeper  and  more  reverential  was  his  obeisance  than  that 
of  any  of  his  companions.  Once,  on  such  an  occasion, 
no  doubt  as  an  honorable  reward  for  his  submissive  be- 
havior and  faithful  attendance,  the  princess  beckoned 
to  him  to  lend  her  the  help  of  his  arm  to  come  down 
the  steps  of  her  carriage.  Slight  was  the  touch  of  that 
tiny  hand ;  light  was  the  weight  of  that  sylph-like 
form :  and  yet  the  rough  Cossack  trembled  like  aspen 
leaf,  and  staggered  under  the  convulsive  effort  which 
shook  his  bold  frame. 

Now  the  cannon  booms,  the  bells  ring  merrily,  the 
people  shout,  drums  beat,  and  a  thousand  other  military 
instruments  strain  their  brazen  throats — the  bride  of 
Alexis  has  come,  and  enters  the  imperial  palace.  On 
the  evening  of  that  very  day,  a  confidential  servant 
slipped  into  the  hand  of  the  Cossack,  with  whom 
we  have  become  acquainted,  a  small  sealed  bundle, 
containing  two  pieces  of  paper.  One  was  a  letter ;  it 
ran  thus : — 

"  D'AUBANT, 

"  Your  disguise  was  not  one  for  me.  It  could  not  deceive  my  heart. 
Now  that  I  am  the  wife  of  another,  know  for  the  first  time  my  long  kept 
secret — I  love  you.  Such  a  confession  is  a  declaration  that  we  must  never 
meet  again.  The  mercy  of  God  be  upon  us  both  ! 

CHARLOTTE." 

The  other  paper  was  a  passport  signed  by  the  emperor 
himself,  and  giving  to  the  Chevalier  d'Aubant  permission 
to  leave  the  empire  at  his  convenience.  Before  the 
sun  was  up,  next  morning,  the  princess'  wish  had  been 
complied  with,  and  d'Aubant  was  already  journeying 
far  away  from  St.  Petersburg. 

Whither  he  went,  no  one  knew,  but  in  1*718,  he  ar- 
rived in  Louisiana  with  the  grade  of  captain  in  the 


STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE.  267 

colonial  troops.  Shortly  after,  he  was  stationed  at 
New  Orleans,  where,  beyond  the  discharge  of  his  duties, 
he  shunned  the  contact  of  his  brother  officers,  and 
lived  in  the  utmost  solitude.  No  fault  was  found  with 
his  want  of  sociability,  because  although  his  physiog- 
nomy was  calm  and  placid,  yet  there  was  in  it  that  in- 
describable expression  which  indicated  that  under  it 
lurked  such  sorrow  as  commanded  respect  and  sym- 
pathy. 

On  the  bank  of  Bayou,  or  river  St.  John,  on  the  land 
known  in  our  days  as  Allard's  plantation,  and  on  the 
very  site  where  now  stands  the  large  and  airy  house 
which  we  see,  there  was  a  small  village  of  friendly  In- 
dians. From  the  bank  opposite  the  village,  beginning 
where  at  a  much  later  period  was  to  be  erected  the 
bridge  which  spans  the  Bayou,  a  winding  path  made 
by  the  Indians,  and  subsequently  enlarged  into  Bayou, 
Road  by  the  European  settlers,  ran  through  a  thick 
forest,  and  connected  the  Indian  village  with  the 
French  settlement  of  New  Orleans.  With  the  consent 
of  the  Indians,  in  order  the  better  to  indulge  in  his 
solitary  mood,  d'Aubant  had  there  formed  a  rural  re- 
treat, where  he  spent  most  of  the  time  he  could  spare 
from  his  military  avocations.  Plain  and  rude  was  the 
soldier's  dwelling ;  but  it  contained,  as  ornament,  a  full 
length  and  admirable  portrait  of  a  female  surpassingly 
beautiful,  in  the  contemplation  of  which  d'Aubant 
would  frequently  remain  absorbed  as  in  a  trance. 
There  was  in  this  painting  a  remarkable  feature,  no 
doubt  allegorical.  Near  the  figure  represented,  stood 
a  table  on  which  lay  a  crown,  resting  not  on  a  cushion, 
as  usual,  but  on  a  heart  which  it  crushed  with  its  weight, 
and  at  which  the  lady  gazed  with  intense  melancholy. 
This  painting  attracted,  of  course,  a  good  deal  of  ob- 
servation, but  no  one  dared  to  allude  to  it.  By  intui- 


268  STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE. 

tion,  every  one  felt  that  it  was  sacred  ground  on  which 
inquiry  ought  not  to  tread. 

Where  was  all  the  while  the  Princess  Charlotte,  the 
gilded  victim  of  imperial  misery?  Was  she  beloved 
as  she  deserved  by  her  lord  and  master,  Alexis  Petro- 
witz,  the  stupid  son  of  Peter  the  Great?  No!  the 
brute  had  been  true  to  his  groveling  nature ;  the  swine 
had  gone  back  to  its  sty ;  the  gross  and  sensual  appe- 
tite of  the  man,  who  knew  naught  beyond  the  gratifi- 
cation of  lustful  passion,  had  turned  away  from  the 
ethereal  charms  of  the  goddess ;  the  prince  had  bestow- 
ed his  affections,  such  as  they  could  be,  on  one  of  the 
female  scullions  of  his  kitchens, — a  Cossack  maid, — a 
she  bear  worthy  of  her  mate.  One  day,  entering  his 
wife's  apartments,  in  a  state  of  half-inebriation,  he  in- 
sisted upon  her  receiving  his  paramour  into  her  house- 
hold among  her  maids  of  honor.  Mild  was  her  nega- 
tive answer,  but  decisive  and  dignified-  in  its  tone. 
Heated  by  the  fumes  of  his  deep  potations,  fiercely  im- 
petuous by  the  nature  which  he  inherited  from  his 
father,  and  which  education  had  not  modified,  excited 
by  such  contradiction  as  he  was  not  used  to  meet,  the 
barbarian  prince  gradually  worked  himself  into  a  par- 
oxysm of  frantic  rage,  foamed  at  the  mouth  like  an  in- 
furiated dog,  and  with  the  wild  gestures  and  terrific 
shrieks  of  a  maniac,  rushed  upon  his  wife,  whom,  with 
repeated  blows,  he  laid  prostrate  on  the  floor,  senseless 
and  cold  in  apparent  death.  Of  the  bystanders  none 
dared  to  interfere  to  protect  the  victim  of  brutality ; 
for  although  dignified  with  the  names  of  noblemen  and 
gentlemen,  they  were  slaves,  and  their  master  a  despot. 
But  the  justice  of  heaven  was  not  asleep ;  and  when, 
not  many  years  after,  Alexis  the  brute  showed  an  un- 
doubted and  immutable  determination  to  arrest,  when 
power  should  be  his,  the  civilization  which  Peter  the 


STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE.  269 

Great  was  imparting  to  Kussia,  Europe  stood  aghast  on 
witnessing  a  father  butchering  his  own  son. 

But  the  princess  has  recovered  from  her  swoon,  and 
she  is  left  alone,  with  her  friend  and  bosom  companion, 
the  Countess  of  Koenigsmark.  Long  did  they  converse 
together  in  subdued  tones,  and  what  they  said  none 
ever  knew.  But  if  one  had,  with  indiscreet  eye,  ob- 
served the  expression  of  their  faces  and  the  nervous 
contraction  of  their  whispering  lips,  he  would  have  con- 
ceived that  these  feeble  beings  had  been  roused  into 
the  commission  of  some  deed  of  desperate  energy.  It 
was  evident  that  the  cup  of  bitterness  had  overflowed ; 
that  enough  had  been  meekly,  patiently  borne  with ; 
that  the  limits  of  human  endurance  had  been  passed ; 
and  in  those  flashing  eyes,  although  they  were  those  of 
women,  there  could  be  seen  the  deep-seated  resolve,  the 
stern  decree  of  immutable  fate.  That  very  night,  the 
Countess  of  Koenigsmark  entered  secretly  the  princess' 
room,  and  there  was  reacted  that  scene  where  Friar 
Lawrence  says  to  Juliet: 

"  Take  thou  this  phial,  being  then  in  bed, 
And  this  distilled  liquor  drink  thou  off: 
When,  presently,  through  all  thy  veins  shall  run 
A  cold  and  drowsy  humor,  which  shall  seize 
Each  vital  spirit;  for  no  pulse  shall  keep 
His  natural  progress,  but  surcease  to  beat. 
No  warmth,  no  breath,  shall  testify  thou  liv'st ; 
The  roses  in  thy  lips  and  cheeks  shall  fade 
To  paly  ashes ;  thy  eyes'  windows  fall, 
Like  death,  when  he  shuts  up  the  day  of  life ; 
Each  part  deprived  of  supple  government, 
Shall  stiff,  and  stark,  and  cold,  appear  like  death ; 
And  in  this  borrowed  likeness  of  shrunk  death 
Thou  shalt  remain  full  two-and-forty  hours, 
And  then  awake  as  from  a  pleasant  sleep. 
Now  when  the  bridegroom  in  the  morning  comes 
To  rouse  thee  from  thy  bed,  there  art  thou  dead. 
Then,  (as  the  manner  of  our  country  is,) 
In  thy  best  robes  uncovered  on  the  bier, 
Thou  shalt  be  borne  to  that  same  ancient  vault, 
Where  all  the  kindred  of  the  Capulets  lie." 


270  STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE. 

The  imperial  funeral  took  place,  and  according  to  the 
plan  which  had  been  laid,  the  whole  of  Europe  was  de- 
ceived. The  Princess  Charlotte  of  Brunswick  Wolfen- 
buttel,  the  wife  of  Alexis  Petrowitz,  was  no  more,  but 
the  woman  was  not  dead — the  Juliet  that  loved  a  Ro- 
meo had  burst  out  of  her  tomb — poor  indeed,  unknown, 
without  rank,  without  family,  without  menial  attend- 
ance, but  free,  with  the  whole  world  before  her,  and 
with  Love  and  Hope  for  her  handmaids.  That  was 
enough ! 

With  the  two  hundred  emigrants  who  had  arrived  in 
March,  1721,  there  had  come,  as  I  have  already  said,  a 
woman  who,  by  her  beauty  and  by  that  nameless  thing 
which  marks  a  superior  being  or  extraordinary  destinies, 
had,  on  her  landing  at  New  Orleans,  attracted  public 
attention.  She  immediately  inquired  for  the  Chevalier 
d'Aubant,  to  whom  she  pretended  to  be  recommended. 
She  was  informed  that  he  was  at  his  retreat  on  the  Ba- 
you St.  John,  and  that  he  would  be  sent  for.  But  she 
eagerly  opposed  it,  and  begged  that  a  guide  should 
conduct  her  to  d'Aubant's  rural  dwelling. 

It  was  on  a  vernal  evening,  and  the  last  rays  of  the 
sun  were  lingering  in  the  west.  Seated  in  front  of  the 
portrait  which  we  know,  d'Aubant,  with  his  eyes  rooted 
to  the  ground,  seemed  to  be  plunged  in  deep  reverie. 
Suddenly  he  looked  up — gracious  heaven!  it  was  no 
longer  a  mere  inanimate  representation  of  fictitious  life 
which  he  saw — it  was  flesh  and  blood — the  dead  was 
alive  again — and  confronting  him  with  a  smile  so  sweet 
and  sad — with  eyes  moist  with  rapturous  tears — and 
with  such  an  expression  of  concentrated  love  as  can 
only  be  borrowed  from  the  abode  of  bliss  above.  "  O 
God  F  exclaimed  d'Aubant,  starting  up  and  convul- 
sively pressing  his  forehead  with  his  hands,  "  what 
phantasy  of  a  fevered  brain  is  this !  Mercy  on  me ! — I 


STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE  CONCLUDED.         271 

am  mad !"  But  soon  he  felt  that  the  being  who  nestled 
in  his  bosom,  that  the  arms  folded  round  his  neck,  were 
not  creations  of  a  delirious  imagination.  What  pen 
could  do  j  ustice  to  this  scene  ?  Away  then  with  de- 
scription !  What  need  should  there  be  of  any  effort  of 
the  mind  to  paint  what  the  heart  can  so  easily  conceive ! 
Suffice  it  to  say  that,  on  the  next  day,  the  Chevalier 
d'Aubant  was  married  to  the  mysterious  stranger,  who 
gave  no  other  name  to  the  inquiring  priest  than  that  of 
Charlotte.  In  commemoration  of  this  event,  they 
planted  those  two  oaks,  which,  looking  like  twins  and 
interlocking  their  leafy  arms,  are,  to  this  day,  to  be 
seen  standing  side  by  side  on  the  bank  of  the  St.  John, 
and  bathing  their  feet  in  the  stream,  a  little  to  the  right 
of  the  bridge,  as  you  cross  it,  in  front  of  Allard's  plan- 
tation. 

It  is  strange  how  the  most  secret  events  will  tran- 
spire !  With  the  fluidity  of  gas,  they  evaporate  through 
thick  walls  of  stone,  and  are  scattered  over  the  whole 
world.  For  instance,  what  gave  currency  at  the  time 
to  the  circumstances  which  I  have  related  ?  By  what 
concealed  agency  events  are  known  with  astonishingly 
minute  precision  in  distant  places,  long  before  they 
could  be  carried  there  by  any  physical  process  \  Is  it 
second  sight,  magnetic  perception,  supernatural  intui- 
tion, or  the  electric  traveling  of  the  mind  ?  Are  there 
mysterious  carriers  of  news  through  heaven  and  earth  ? 
Certain  it  is,  that  although  d'Aubant  and  his  wife  kept 
their  own  secret  and  lived  in  almost  monastic  retire- 
ment, rumors  about  their  wonderful  history  were  so 
rife  in  the  colony,  and  the  attention  of  which  they 
became  the  objects,  subjected  them  to  so  much  un- 
easiness, that  d'Aubant  contrived  to  leave  the  coun- 
try soon  after,  and  went  to  Paris,  where  his  wife  having 
met  the  Marshal  of  Saxe  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries, 


272  NEW  REGULATIONS  IN  THE  COLONY. 

and  being  recognized  by  him,  escaped  detection  with 
the  greatest  difficulty.  D'Aubant  departed  with  the 
grade  of  major  for  the  Island  of  Bourbon,  where  he  re- 
sided for  a  considerable  time.  In  1754,  on  his  death, 
his  widow  returned  to  Paris  with  a  daughter,  the  only 
offspring  of  her  union  with  d'Aubant,  and  in  1771,  she 
died  in  a  state  bordering  on  destitution.  The  particu- 
lars of  this  adventure  are  found  in  many  memoirs  of 
the  epoch,  and  in  the  notes  and  papers  of  Duclos :  but 
Levesque,  in  his  history  of  Russia,  Grimm,  in  his  cor- 
respondence, and  the  sceptic  Voltaire,  in  a  letter  which 
he  published  on  the  19th  February,  1781,  deny  the 
truth  of  the  story  as  being  too  improbable.  However, 
the  experience  of  centuries  teaches  us  that  nothing  is 
more  probable  than  improbabilities :  and  must  it  not 
be  inferred  that  there  was  some  foundation  for  the  ro- 
mantic incidents  I  have  recorded,  when  they  assumed 
such  a  substantial  shape  as  to  become  a  subject  of  seri- 
ous controversy  with  men  of  the  highest  distinction  ? 

On  the  5th  of  September,  a  council  of  administration 
for  the  affairs  of  the  company  in  Louisiana  was  organ- 
ized, and  composed  as  follows : — the  governor,  the  lieu- 
tenant de  roi,  or  lieutenant-governor,  the  directeur  or- 
donnateur,  or  commissary  director,  the  chief  director, 
and  sub-director  of  accounts.  This  council  was  to  meet 
every  day  at  New  Biloxi,  where  its  members  were 
bound  to  reside,  with  the  exception  of  Bienville,  the 
governor,  who  was  permitted  to  reside  at  New  Orleans. 
The  deliberations  of  the  council  were  to  be  faithfully 
recorded :  of  which  journal,  copies  were  to  be  sent  to 
France,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  record  has 
not  been  transmitted  to  us. 

It  was  ordered,  by  a  decree,  that  the  merchandise  of 
the  company  should  be  sold  at  New  Orleans,  Biloxi, 
and  Mobile,  at  fifty  per  cent,  profit  on  their  original 


POPULATION  OF  LOUISIANA  IN  1721.  273 

cost  in  France ;  at  Natchez  and  Yazoo,  seventy  per 
cent. ;  at  Arkansas,  at  one  hundred  per  cent. ;  and  at 
the  Alibamons,  at  fifty  per  cent.,  on  account,  as  it  was 
expressed,  of  the  competition  arising  from  the  proximity 
of  British  settlements.  On  the  27th  of  the  same  month, 
it  was  determined  that  negroes  should,  on  an  average, 
be  sold  to  the  inhabitants  for  660  livres,  for  which  their 
notes  were  to  be  furnished,  on  three  years'  credit,  pay- 
able by  equal  instalments,  either  in  tobacco  or  in  rice, 
according  to  agreement.  When  two  terms  became  due, 
if  the  purchaser  could  not  pay  one  third  of  the  amount, 
the  negroes  were  resold,  after  due  publication,  and  after 
notice  given  of  the  sale  to  the  public.  When  the  re- 
sult of  the  sale  was  not  such  as  to  pay  the  company, 
and  to  meet  all  other  expenses,  the  debtor  was  liable  to 
imprisonment. 

Tobacco,  en  families,  or  leaf  tobacco,  fair  quality,  was 
to  be  received  in  payment  of  negroes,  at  the  rate  of 
twenty-five  cents  per  hundred  pounds,  and  rice  at 
twelve  cents,  when  delivered  at  the  company's  ware- 
houses at  New  Orleans,  New  Biloxi,  or  Mobile.  Wine 
was  to  be  sold  by  the  company  at  120  livres  per  cask, 
and  brandy  at  the  same  price  for  a  quarter  of  a  cask. 

Louisiana  was  divided  into  nine  territorial  districts, 
such  as  New  Orleans,  Biloxi,  Mobile,  Alibamons,  Nat- 
chez, Yazoo,  Natchitoches,  Arkansas  and  Illinois.  There 
were  to  be  for  each  district  a  commander  or  governor, 
and  a  judge  from  whose  decisions  appeals  could  be 
taken  to  the  Superior  Council,  sitting  at  New  Biloxi. 
This  order  of  things  was  established,  as  stated  in  the 
decree,  to  put  justice,  with  greater  ease,  within  reach  of 
the  colonists. 

In  the  month  of  June  of  the  year  1721,  there  re- 
mained in  the  colony  six  hundred  negroes,  and  four 
hundred  out  of  the  five  hundred  colonists  who  were  in 


274:  LOSS  OF  ONE  OF  THE  COMPANY'S  SHIPS. 

the  country,  when  Crozat  had  given  up  his  charter. 
Seven  thousand  and  twenty  individuals  had  been  trans- 
ported by  the  company  in  forty-three  vessels  specially 
employed  for  that  purpose,  from  the  25th  of  October, 
1717,  to  May,  1721.  But  of  this  number  about  2000 
having  died,  deserted,  or  returned  to  France  by  permis- 
sion, the  remaining  white  population  did  not  exceed 
5420  souls.  The  expenses  of  administration,  however,  al- 
though the  territory  was  so  thinly  peopled,  proved  very 
considerable,  and  amounted,  this  year,  to  474,274  livres. 
A  ship  of  the  company  had  left  France  in  1718,  with 
troops  and  one  hundred  convicts,  but  had  never  been 
heard  of.  Toward  the  close  of  the  year  1721,  there 
arrived  in  Louisiana,  a  French  officer  who  gave  some 
account  of  the  ill-fated  vessel.  It  appears  that  her  cap- 
tain had  mistaken  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  had 
entered,  by  the  29th  degree  of  latitude,  into  a  large 
bay,  where  he  at  last,  but  too  late,  discovered  his  error. 
Hardly  had  the  ship  anchored,  when  a  contagious  epi- 
demic broke  out  among  the  convicts,  and  produced  such 
dreadful  havoc,  that  five  of  the  officers,  named  Belleisle, 
Allard,  De  Lisle,  Legendre  and  Corlat,  thought  that  it 
would  be  less  dangerous  for  them  to  land,  well  pro- 
vided with  arms  and  with  eight  days'  provisions,  than 
to  remain  on  board  in  a  pestiferous  atmosphere.  Their 
hope  was  to  meet  with  some  friendly  Indian  who  could 
guide  them  to  the  French  settlements,  which  they  con- 
jectured to  be  not  far  off.  In  the  mean  time,  the  ship 
sailed  away,  and  of  her  there  never  was  any  further 
tidings.  For  several  days  the  five  adventurers  wan- 
dered in  every,  direction  without  discovering  any  habi- 
tation, or  meeting  any  human  being.  They  exhausted 
their  provisions  and  ammunition,  and  had  to  rely  alto- 
gether on  the  scanty  supply  of  food  they  could  procure. 
Unused  to  the  climate,  broken  down  by  privations  of 


FATE  OF  THE  SURVIVORS.  275 

every  kind,  Allard  was  the  first  to  perish ; — De  Lisle 
followed ; — soon  after  Legendre  dropped  into  the  grave 
which  Corlat  and  Belleisle  dug  for  him.  Then  these 
two  men  looked  at  each  other  with  mute  despair  in 
that  boundless  wilderness  by  which  they  were  encom- 
passed, and  they  seemed  to  scrutinize  each  other's  face 
to  ascertain  which  of  the  two  would  bury  the  other 
one.  A  few  days  had  hardly  elapsed,  when  Corlat 
bade  a  last  farewell  to  Belleisle,  and  yielded  the  ghost. 
Belleisle  covered  his  companion's  corpse  with  dry 
leaves,  branches  and  bushes,  and  then  threw  himself  on 
the  ground  with  the  determination  to  die.  But  the 
love  of  life  is  strong  in  man's  breast,  and  at  last  he 
braced  up  his  energies  to  escape  from  the  death  he  had 
but  lately  coveted.  He  sought  the  sea-shore,  where  he 
lived  on  the  contents  of  shells,  on  fish,  and  on  roots, 
anxiously  passing  many  a  weary  day  in  studying  the 
broad  expanse  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  with  the  hope 
that  some  vessel  might  heave  in  sight. 

Months  elapsed — and  there  was  no  prospect  of  relief. 
His  tattered  clothes  had  dropped  from  his  limbs :  ex- 
posed to  all  the  inclemencies  of  the  weather,  living  on 
unwholesome  food,  sometimes  deprived  of  any,  worn  out 
by  mental  anxiety  as  well  as  by  bodily  sufferings,  he 
was  reduced  to  a  frightful  state  of  emaciation ; — and 
with  his  overgrown  shaggy  hair  and  beard,  he  looked 
more  like  a  wild  beast  than  a  man.  His  strength  was 
gradually  failing,  he  felt  that  life  was  fast  ebbing  away, 
and  that  a  slow,  lingering  death — the  death  of  starva- 
tion— was  staring  him  in  the  face.  One  day  that  he 
was  lying  on  the  ground,  incapable,  as  he  thought,  of 
motion,  and  with  his  feeble  vision  scanning  the  horizon 
which  seemed  to  dance  round  him,  as  it  receded  and 
faded  away  from  his  swimming  sight,  he  fancied  he 
saw  a  light  grayish  smoke  rising  slowly  above  the  dis- 


276  MISFORTUNES  OF  BELLEISLE. 

tant  trees,  in  the  heart  of  the  forest.  Oh !  how  his 
heart  leaped  within  his  breast ! — he  shaded  his  eyes 
with  his  tremulous  hands,  and  looked  again  with  fearful 
doubt  and  agonizing  anxiety.  Yes ! — it  was  a  smoke  ! 
And  the  gladful  conviction  flashing  on  his  soul,  drew  a 
flood  of  tears  down  his  wasted  and  hollow  cheeks.  He 
raised  his  skeleton  hands  toward  heaven,  and  with  a 
full  heart  thanked  the  Almighty.  Then  up  to  his  feet 
he  sprang — but  he  staggered  back  and  fell.  Good  God ! 
will  the  miserable  remnant  of  his  physical  powers,  al- 
though so  powerfully  stimulated  by  the  prospect  of  re- 
lief, fail  him  entirely  when  most  needed — at  such  a  crit- 
ical moment !  Making  a  desperate  effort,  he  rose  again 
and  reeled  forward  to  some  distance.  Then,  he  crept 
along  like  a  snake — now  panting  with  exertion  and  fa- 
tigue— now  resting  awhile — now  again  dragging  him- 
self painfully,  with  his  eyes  stretched  and  riveted  on 
the  merrily  curling  smoke.  Oh !  how  he  trembled  that 
it  should  suddenly  disappear!  His  excitement  grew 
more  intense  as  he  drew  nearer,  and  at  last  he  thought 
that  he  was  within  hearing  distance.  He  shouted,  or 
thought  he  shouted ;  but  his  parched  throat  emitted  no 
sound  which  reached  his  own  ears. 

Three  Indians  were  quietly  seated  round  a  brisk  fire 
and  roasting  luscious  venison,  the  juice  of  which  falling  on 
the  live  embers  produced  a  grateful  hissing  sound,  and 
emitted  a  savory  smell,  when  a  slight  cracking — the 
snapping  of  a  dry  twig,  caught  their  attention  and 
awoke  their  suspicion.  With  one  simultaneous  bound 
they  sprung — one  with  uplifted  tomahawk — the  other 
two  with  raised  bows  ready  to  fling  their  deadly  arrows. 
But  they  dropped  their  weapons,  when  they  ascer- 
tained what  object  stood  before  them.  It  was  Belleisle 
who,  with  imploring  gesticulations,  made  appeals  to 
their  pity.  The  Indians  looked  at  each  other  wonder- 


RESCUE  OF  BELLEISLE.  277 

ingly,  and  as  it  were,  in  rapid  consultation,  when  one 
of  them  beckoned  to  Belleisle,  inviting  him  to  approach 
the  fire  and  partake  of  their  fare.  There  they  re- 
mained encamped  until  he  could  walk,  and  then  they 
took  him  to  their  village,  where  he  was  kept  in  a  state 
of  servitude  during  eighteen  months.  He  swept  the 
cabins  of  his  masters,  cleaned  their  weapons,  planted 
their  corn,  cooked  their  victuals,  and  performed  all  the 
other  services  of  a  menial.  A  severe  trial  he  had  of  it 
— the  half-starved  drudge ! — the  overtasked  hewer  of 
wood  and  drawer  of  water  to  barbarian  tyrants !  At 
last  an  Indian  of  the  tribe  where  he  was  held  in  cap- 
tivity, stole  from  him  a  small  tin  box  which  his  masters 
had  permitted  him  to  retain,  and  which  contained  his 
commission  as  an  officer,  and  other  papers.  The  thief 
sold  the  box  to  a  member  of  the  Assinais  tribe.  These 
Indians  lived  in  Texas,  not  far  from  the  French  settle- 
ment of  Natchitoches,  with  which  they  had  frequent  in- 
tercourse. The  new  owner  of  the  box,  thinking  that 
it  might  be  valuable  to  his  white  neighbors,  and  that 
he  might  sell  it  to  them  with  advantage,  carried  it  to 
that  market,  where,  of  course,  it  attracted  attention, 
and  was  exhibited  to  St.  Denis,  the  commander  of 
Natchitoches.  It  gave  rise  to  inquiry,  and  St.  Denis, 
being  informed  of  the  melancholy  situation  of  one  of  his 
countrymen,  dispatched  some  Indians  to  treat  for  the 
ransom  of  Belleisle,  who  was  safely  conducted  by  them 
to  Natchitoches. 

Such  were  all  the  remarkable  events  which  occurred 
in  1721. 

In  the  year  1722,  on  the  12th  of  March,  the  com- 
pany issued  an  ordinance  which  prohibited  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Louisiana  from  selling  their  negroes,  for  trans- 
portation out  of  the  colony,  to  the  Spaniards,  or  to  any 
other  subjects  of  a  foreign  nation,  under  the  penalty 


278       BIENVILLE'S  ARGUMENTS  IN  FAVOR  OF  NEW  ORLEANS. 

of  a  fine  of  one  thousand  livres  and  confiscation  of  the 
negroes. 

On  the  20th  of  April,  Bienville  wrote  from  Fort  St. 
Louis  at  Mobile,  to  the  French  government,  an  interestr 
ing  communication  on  the  difficulties  attending  the  un- 
loading of  vessels  on  the  shores  of  Biloxi,  on  account  of 
the  shallowness  of  the  water ;  which  difficulties  he  rep- 
resented as  not  existing  in  the  Mississippi.  "  I  have 
had  the  honor,"  said  he,  "  to  send  to  the  council  in  my 
last  letter  detailed  information  on  the  mouths  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  to  give  the  assurance  that  vessels  not 
drawing  more  than  thirteen  feet  water  could  go  over 
the  bar  with  all  sail  set,  without  risk  of  stranding. 
It  would  not  be  difficult  to  render  the  pass  practicable 
for  larger  ships,  because  the  bottom  consists  of  soft  and 
moving  mud.  I  would  have  already  done  so,  if  the  en- 
gineers who  are  intrusted  with  the  execution  of  the 
public  works  had  shared  my  opinion.  But  their  atten- 
tion is  engrossed  by  the  improvements  which  have  been 
attempted  at  Biloxi,  and  which  I  think  will  have  to  be 
abandoned.  Should  the  company  persist  in  sending 
their  vessels  to  Biloxi,  it  will  materially  retard  the  pro- 
gress of  the  colony,  and  will  expose  us  to  considerable 
expenses.  The  vessels  are  forced  to  stop  at  Ship  Island, 
which  is  fifteen  miles  from  the  main  land  where  our 
settlement  is  situated.  To  unload  these  vessels,  we  are 
obliged  to  send  to  Ship  Island  packet-boats,  which, 
in  their  turn,  can  not  approach  Biloxi  nearer  than 
two  miles  and  a  half.  Then,  other  small  boats  are 
sent  to  unload  the  packet-boats,  and  these  boats,  small 
as  they  are,  strand  at  a  distance  of  carbine-shot  from 
the  shore.  This  statement  of  facts  ought  to  be  suf 
ficient  to  convince  the  council  of  the  importance  of  or- 
dering all  vessels  coming  from  France  to  enter  the  Mis- 
sissippi, where  they  would  discharge  their  cargoes  in  two 


ARRIVAL  OF  THE  NEWS  OF  LAW'S  DOWNFALL.          279 

days.  I  assumed  the  responsibility  of  sending  thither 
two  flutes  (small  vessels),  which  crossed  the  bar  with 
all  sails  set.  I  would  have  done  the  same  with  the 
other  vessels,  which  have  just  arrived,  if  we  had  not 
received  the  precise  order  of  unloading  them  at  Biloxi." 

It  is  really  astonishing  that,  in  spite  of  the  judicious 
and  self-evident  representations  of  Bienville,  backed  by 
the  physical  structure  of  the  country,  the  French  gov- 
ernment should  have  so  obstinately  and  for  so  many 
years  clung  to  the  bleak  and  worthless  shores  of  Biloxi, 
as  the  chief  settlement  of  Louisiana,  and  its  most  im- 
portant commercial  emporium.  But  there  is  very  little 
common  sense  to  be  discovered  in  the  administration 
of  most  colonies  by  the  mother  country,  and  particu- 
larly in  that  of  Louisiana  under  the  French  domination. 

On  the  20th  of  May,  it  was  decreed  that  there 
should  be  in  the  Superior  Council,  five  councilors  in- 
stead of  four,  and  those  councilors  were,  Brusle, 
Fazende,  Perry,  Guilhet  and  Masclary. 

On  the  4th  of  June,  a  vessel  of  the  company  arrived 
with  another  band  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  Germans, 
commanded  by  the  Chevalier  d'Arensbourg,  a  Swedish 
officer,  who  had  so  distinguished  himself  at  the  battle 
of  Pultawa,  that  he  had  been  presented  by  Charles  the 
Xllth  with  a  sword,  which  is  still  in  the  hands  of  his 
descendants  in  Louisiana.  This  vessel  brought  back  to 
the  colony  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  who,  in  1709,  it  will 
be  remembered,  had  joined  in  the  systematic  opposition 
made  to  Bienville  by  the  commissary  La  Salle  and  the 
Curate  de  la  Vente.  Marigny  had  obtained  in  France 
the  cross  of  St.  Louis  and  the  command  of  Fort  Conde 
at  Mobile. 

With  this  vessel  came  the  confirmation  of  the  utter 
discomfiture  of  Law,  and  of  the  ruin  and  desolation 
which  his  plans  and  banking  operations  had  generated 


280  M.  DE  CHASSIN'S  APPLICATION  FOR  A  WIFE 

in  France.  It  produced  a  great  sensation  in  the  col- 
ony, because  the  inhabitants  were  afraid  of  being  left  to 
their  own  resources,  and  of  being  lost  sight  of,  on  ac- 
count of  the  general  distress  which  reigned  in  France, 
and  which  was  sufficient  to  absorb  all  the  attention  and 
resources  of  the  government.  Their  apprehensions, 
however,  were  not  immediately  realized  to  the  extent 
which  they  anticipated,  and  they  continued,  through 
part  of  the  year,  to  receive  some  further  supplies  and 
assistance.  On  the  15th  of  July,  Duvergier,  who  had 
been  appointed  directeur  ordonnateur  et  commandant  de 
la  marine,  landed  at  Pensacola,  bearing  crosses  of  St. 
Louis  to  Boisbriant,  to  St.  Denis,  and  to  Chateaugue, 
who,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  made  prisoner  at 
Pensacola  by  the  Spaniards,  when  they  retook  that 
place,  and  who  had  lately  been  exchanged. 

Although,  as  it  has  been  shown  in  the  course  of  these 
lectures,  many  importations  of  females  had  been  made, 
the  want  of  them  continued  to  be  sensibly  felt,  and  to 
be  a  subject  of  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  colonists. 
As  a  specimen  of  the  tone  and  manners  of  the  time,  I 
think  it  is  not  out  of  place  to  record  here  an  extract 
from  a  letter  addressed  on  that  subject  to  one  of  the 
king's  ministers  in  France,  by  one  M.  de  Chassin.  It 
bears  a  stamp  of  originality  which  is  quite  characteris- 
tic. "  You  see,  my  Lord,"  said  he,  "  that  to  assure  the 
solidity  of  our  establishment  in  Louisiana,  there  is  but 
one  thing  wanting — a  sufficient  number  of  women. 
However,  woman  is  a  piece  of  furniture  which  many  re- 
pent of  having  introduced  into  their  household,  and 
without  which  I  shall  contrive  to  get  along  until,  as  I 
have  had  already  the  honor  to  inform  you,  the  com- 
pany shall  think  proper  to  send  us  girls  having  at  least 
some  appearance  of  virtue.  If,  by  chance,  there  should 
be  among  your  female  acquaintances  one  disposed  to 


FAMINE  IN  THE  COLONY.  281 

risk  the  voyage  for  my  sake,  I  should  certainly  be  great- 
ly under  her  obligation,  and  would  most  assuredly  do 
my  best  to  give  her  proofs  of  my  gratitude." 

This  M.  de  Chassin,  who  presumed  to  write  in  such 
a  style  of  familiarity  to  one  of  the  king's  ministers,  has 
left  no  other  trace  of  his  passage  in  Louisiana  than 
this  jocose  application  for  a  wife.  It  is  likely,  from  his 
name,  from  the  lightness  of  his  tone,  and  from  the  per- 
fect ease  with  which  he  addressees  one  of  the  great  dig- 
nitaries of  the  kingdom,  that  he  was  a  scion  of  nobility, 
who  had  been  invited  to  travel  to,  and  to  stay  in 
Louisiana,  until  his  morals  or  his  purse  should  have  re- 
covered from  the  effect  of  the  commission  of  youthful 
follies. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  year,  the  supplies  which 
used  to  be  sent  from  France  became  more  scanty  on  ac- 
count of  the  disorderly  state  into  which  the  affairs  of 
the  company  were  falling.  Famine  made  again  its  ap- 
pearance in  the  colony,  as  it  had  frequently  done  be- 
fore, and  it  became  necessary,  from  the  want  of  pro- 
visions, to  quarter  some  of  the  troops,  in  small  squads, 
among  the  Indians,  and  to  scatter  the  rest  on  the  banks 
of  rivers,  where  they  lived  as  they  could,  on  fish  and 
game.  Twenty-six  soldiers  who  constituted  the  garri- 
son of  Fort  Toulouse  among  the  Alibamons,  being  re- 
duced to  very  short  allowance,  and  suffering  too  acutely 
and  too  long  from  their  wants,  butchered  their  captain, 
Marchand,  and  with  their  arms  and  baggage  departed 
for  South  Carolina.  Villemont,  their  lieutenant,  who, 
when  the  murder  of  Marehand  took  place  at  the  fort, 
happened  to  be  absent,  and  whose  life  was  saved  by 
that  circumstance,  on  hearing  of  what  had  occurred, 
made  an  appeal  to  the  Indians  as  friends  of  his  govern- 
ment, and  persuaded  them  to  pursue  with  him  the  re- 
bellious deserters.  They  soon  overtook  the  fugitives, 


282  PLAN  TO  WITHDRAW  FROM  CIRCULATION 

who,  knowing  the  fate  they  had  to  expect  if  they  sur- 
rendered, fought  with  desperation,  and  were  killed  al- 
most to  a  man. 

Fortunately,  toward  the  latter  part  of  September, 
the  colony  was  relieved  by  the  arrival  of  a  vessel  well 
stocked  with  provisions  and  ammunition.  It  brought 
the  information  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  Regent  of 
France,  had  intrusted  the  direction  of  the  affairs  of  the 
company  to  three  Commissaries,  Ferrand,  Faget  and  Ma- 
chinet. 

The  distress  of  the  colony  was  increased  by  a  hurri- 
cane which  produced  the  most  extensive  damage,  and 
De  1'Orme,  one  of  the  principal  agents  of  the  company, 
who,  in  a  letter  of  the  30th  of  October,  renders  an  ac- 
count of  the  effects  of  that  hurricane,  speaks  of  con- 
tinual desertions  among  the  soldiers,  mechanics  and 
sailors,  and  recommends,  as  a  remedy  to  the  demoraliz- 
ing influence  of  such  derelictions  of  duty,  to  allow,  in 
all  the  vessels  of  the  company,  free  passage  to  those  per- 
sons who  might  be  disposed  to  return  to  France. 

The  paper  currency  of  the  colony  had  been  reduced 
to  such  a  state  of  discredit,  that  it  had  ceased  to  pass 
and  to  answer  its  purposes.  Hence  a  complete  cessation 
of  business.  It  was  necessary  to  meet  that  evil,  and  the 
company  had  recourse  to  a  process  which  was  not  de- 
ficient in  ingeniousness,  whatever  may  be  said  of  its 
want  of  good  faith.  The  paper  currency  to  which  I 
allude,  consisted  in  notes  signed  and  issued  by  the  di- 
rectors of  the  company  in  France,  or  by  its  commanders, 
officers,  or  chief  agents  in  the  colony.  It  was  decreed 
that  all  these  notes  should  be  converted  into  cards,  to 
which  some  fair  promises  and  additional  privileges  were 
attached  to  give  them  value,  and  that  all  the  notes 
which  should  not  be  presented  at  certain  places  to  cer- 
tain agents,  and  within  a  time  remarkably  short,  to  be 


THE  NOTES  OF  THE  COLONY.  283 

converted  into  cards,  as  desired,  should  become  null 
and  void  in  the  hands  of  the  bearers.  These  notes  be- 
ing scattered  through  an  immense  extent  of  country, 
many  could  not  be  brought  back,  partly  through  want 
of  time  and  partly  through  carelessness  or  indifference, 
and  became  thereby  extinct  according  to  the  decree. 
In  this  way  a  considerable  portion  of  the  company's 
debt  was  liquidated  at  once. 

Sheep,  mild  as  they  are,  will  bleat  obstreperously 
when  they  are  sheared  too  close  by  the  shepherd; 
and  the  inhabitants  of  Louisiana,  following  this  ex- 
ample, complained  so  loudly  that,  by  an  ordinance 
issued  on  the  28th  of  December,  they  were  authorized 
to  send  an  agent  with  full  powers  who  would  advocate 
and  defend  their  interests  before  the  Council  of  State, 
by  which  the  affairs  of  the  company  were  to  be  taken 
into  consideration  and  adjudicated  upon.  On  the  8th 
of  the  same  month,  the  Council  of  State  had  dispatched 
Saunoy  and  de  la  Chaise  to  Louisiana,  to  force  the 
agents  of  the  company  to  render  an  account  of  the  mer- 
chandise sent  by  the  company,  and  of  the  goods  which 
had  been  delivered  to  those  agents  by  the  clerks  of 
Crozat,  when  the  company  was  substituted  for  him  in 
the  government  of  the  province.  They  were  instructed 
to  depart  with  the  utmost  secrecy  and  speed,  to  show 
their  powers  to  the  Superior  Council  on  their  arrival 
in  Louisiana,  then  immediately  to  repair  to  the  com- 
pany's warehouses,  to  take  possession  of  them,  and  to 
put  the  seals  on  all  the  papers  of  the  agents. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  situation  of  affairs  was  gloomy 
enough.  To  make  it  worse,  the  Natchez  recommenced 
war  against  the  French.  They  murdered  three  of  their 
traders,  and  attacked  the  Kolly  Plantation,  which  was 
situated  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  villages,  and 


284:  THE  SEAT  OF  GOVERNMENT 

where  they  killed  a  man  and  destroyed  a  considerable 
number  of  cattle. 

The  three  commissaries,  Faget,  Machinet,  and  Fer- 
rand,  who  had  been  selected  by  the  Regent  to  assume 
the  direction  of  the  affairs  of  the  company,  had  cer- 
tainly been  appointed  to  no  sinecure.  They  had  to 
cope  with  the  discouragements  of  the  colonists,  who  were 
constantly  attempting  to  run  away  from  their  miseries 
— with  the  desertion,  the  insubordination,  and  rebel- 
lious disposition  of  the  troops — with  a  depreciated  paper 
currency,  heavy  debts,  hurricanes,  and  other  calamities 
— with  unfaithful  and  roguish  agents — with  the  spirit 
of  discord,  which  had  always  existed  among  the  officers 
of  the  colony ; — and  now,  in  addition  to  these  numerous 
perplexities,  they  were  threatened  with  a  war  from  the 
Natchez. 

The  three  new  commissaries  who  had  assumed  the 
direction  of  the  affairs  of  the  company,  of  which  they 
were  now  the  sole  administrators,  sanctioned  the  exe- 
cution of  two  projects  which,  for  a  long  while,  had  been 
favorite  conceptions  with  Bienville,  but  which  he  had 
never  been  permitted  to  carry  into  operation.  He  was 
authorized  to  transfer  the  seat  of  government  to  New 
Orleans,  and  to  make  at  the  Arkansas  a  settlement,  the 
chief  object  of  which  was  to  establish  a  connecting  point 
between  the  Illinois  and  the  lower  part  of  the  colony, 
and  to  facilitate  the  introduction  of  horses,  mules,  and 
cattle  from  the  Spanish  provinces.  Bienville,  as  soon 
as  he  received  the  desired  authority,  ordered  La  Harpe, 
with  a  detachment  of  sixteen  men,  to  ascend  the  Ar- 
kansas River  as  far  up  as  possible,  to  make  an  accurate 
survey  of  the  country,  to  look  for  mines,  and  to  inform 
the  Spaniards  he  might  meet,  that  all  the  territory 
watered  by  the  Arkansas  River,  from  its  source  down 


TRANSFERRED  TO  NEW  ORLEANS.      «    285 

to  its  mouth,  was  regarded  by  France  as  belonging  to 
her,  in  consequence  of  the  possession  taken  of  it  by  La 
Salle  when  he  descended  the  Mississippi. 
Thus  closed  the  year  1722. 


THIRD  LECTURE. 

ORIGIN,   CUSTOMS,  MANNERS,   TRADITIONS,  AND  LAWS  OF  THE  NATCHEZ — DECLINK 
OF  THAT  TRIBE — NUMBER  AND  POWER  OF  THE  CHOCTAWS  AND  CHICKASAWS. 

THE  soil  of  the  colony  of  Louisiana  had  been,  from 
time  immemorial,  tenanted  by  an  infinite  number  of 
small  insignificant  Indian  tribes,  the  mere  recapitulation 
of  which  would  uselessly  occupy  more  than  one  page. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  they  had  a  very  similar  appear- 
ance, like  twins  fresh  from  the  womb  of  nature.  There 
were,  it  is  true,  some  differences  in  their  dialects — some 
vai'ieties  in  their  customs,  laws,  and  manners — merging, 
however,  in  the  same  uniformity  of  savage  existence  and 
of  confirmed  barbarism.  In  the  dark  twilight  of  un- 
civilized ignorance  in  which  they  lived,  the  distinctive 
shades  existing  between  their  moral,  intellectual,  and 
physical  features  were  hardly  perceptible,  and  are  cer- 
tainly not  of  sufficient  importance  to  attract  the  notice 
and  to  call  for  the  investigation  of  the  historian.  De 
minimw  non  curat  histwia.  But  an  exception  is  to  be 
made  in  favor  of  the  three  most  important  nations  of 
that  country,  on  account  of  their  numbers,  of  their 
power,  and  of  the  considerable  and  direct  influence 
which  they  exercised  over  the  destinies  of  the  colony. 
These  nations  are  the  Natchez,  the  Choctaws,  and  the 
Chickasaws. 

In  1722,  the  Natchez  could  bring  into  the  field  six 
hundred  warriors.  The  time,  however,  was  not  far  dis- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  NATCHEZ  TRIBE  OF  INDIANS.  287 

tant,  when  they  could  have  set  on  foot  four  thousand 
able-bodied  men.  But  from  different  causes  acting 
with  frightful  rapidity,  their  population  had  been  dwin- 
dling away,  and  they  seemed  to  be  incompetent  to 
arrest  the  gradual  destruction  of  their  race.  If  vague 
and  indistinct  tradition  is  to  be  believed,  the  cradle  of 
the  Natchez  nation  was  somewhere  near  the  sun,  whence 
they  came  to  Mexico ;  which  country  was  their  resting- 
place  for  some  centuries.  But  they  were  probably 
driven  from  it  in  consequence  of  civil  wars  in  which 
they  were  defeated.  Some  of  the  depositaries  of  their 
legendary  lore  even  said,  that  their  nation  had  been  one 
of  those  that  aided  Cortez  in  overthrowing  the  empire 
of  Montezuma.  But  soon  perceiving  that  the  Spaniards 
were  disposed  to  exercise  over  them  a  tyranny  w6rse 
than  the  one  from  which  they  had  sought  to  escape  by 
breaking  the  power  of  the  great  Aztec  emperor  to 
whom  they  were  subjected,  they  determined  to  seek 
another  clime,  where  they  might  enjoy  in  peace  and  in 
perfect  freedom  their  ancient  nationality.  They  fol- 
lowed the  rising  sun  from  east  to  west,  and  came  to 
those  beautiful  hills  in  Louisiana,  which  they  selected 
for  their  new  home.  In  those  days,  the  country  which 
they  occupied  extended  from  Manchac  to  Wabash,  and 
they  could  boast  of  five  hundred  Suns,  or  members  of 
the  royal  family.  Now,  in  1722,  they  were  confined  to 
a  contracted  territory  and  to  a  few  villages,  the  princi- 
pal of  which  was  situated  three  miles  from  Fort  Rosalie, 
on  a  small  water-course,  at  the  distance  of  about  two 
miles  and  a  half  from  the  Mississippi.  The  other  vil- 
lages were  within  a  short  distance  of  the  principal  one, 
where  resided  the  sovereign. 

Their  government  was  a  perfect  Asiatic  despotism. 
Their  sovereign  was  styled  the  Great  Sun,  and  on  his 
death,  it  was  customary  to  immolate  in  his  honor  a  con- 


288      PERSONAL  APPEARANCE  OF  THE  NATCHEZ.. 

siderable  number  of  his  subjects.  The  subordinate 
chiefs  of  the  royal  blood  were  called  Little  Suns,  and 
when  they  also  paid  the  inevitable  tribute  due  to  na- 
ture, there  was,  according  to  their  dignity  and  the  esti- 
mation they  were  held  in,  a  proportionate  and  volun- 
tary sacrifice  of  lives.  The  poor  ignorant  barbarians 
who  thus  died  for  their  princes,  did  it  cheerfully,  be- 
cause they  were  persuaded  that,  by  escorting  them  to 
the  world  of  spirits,  they  would,  in  recompense  for  their 
devotion,  be  entitled  to  live  in  eternal  youth  and  bliss, 
suffering  neither  from  cold,  nor  from  heat,  hunger,  thirst, 
or  disease,  and  rioting  in  the  full  gratification  of  all  their 
tastes,  desires,  and  passions.  These  frequent  hecatombs 
of  human  beings  were  one  of  the  causes,  it  is  said,  which 
contributed  to  a  rapid  diminution  of  that  race.  But  as 
this  sanguinary  custom  appears  to  have  been  very  an- 
cient, and  almost  coeval  with  their  formation  into  na- 
tional existence,  how  is  it  that  they  should  ever  have 
swelled  up  to  be  such  a  powerful  and  numerous  tribe 
as  they  are  represented  to  have  been  at  one  time  ?  It 
is  alledged  that  the  other  causes  of  destruction  were, — a 
state  of  constant  warfare,  the  prevalence  of  affections 
of  the  chest  or  lungs  in  the  winter,  and  the  invasion  of 
the  small-pox. 

The  Natchez  were  of  a  light  mahogany  complexion, 
with  jet-black  hair  and  eyes.  Their  features  were  ex- 
tremely regular,  and  their  expression  was  intelligent, 
open  and  noble.  They  were  tall  in  stature,  very  few 
of  them  being  under  six  feet,  and  the  symmetry  of  their 
well-proportioned  limbs  was  remarkable.  The  smallest 
Natchez  that  was  ever  seen  by  the  French  was  five  feet 
in  height :  considering  himself  a  dwarf,  and,  therefore, 
an  object  of  contumely,  he  always  kept  himself  con- 
cealed. Their  whole  frame  presented  a  beautiful  de- 
velopment of  the  muscles,  and  men  were  not  seen 


THEIR  IMPLEMENTS  AND  WEAPONS.  289 

among  them,  either  overloaded  with  flesh,  or  almost 
completely  deprived  of  this  necessary  appendage  to  the 
human  body — no  bloated,  fat-bellied  lump  of  mortality 
contrasting  in  bold  relief  with  a  thin  and  lank  would-be 
representative  of  a  man.  The  sight  was  never  afflicted 
by  the  appearance  of  a  hunchback  or  some  other  equally 
distorted  wretch,  such  as  are  so  often  observed  among 
the  European  race.  In  common  with  all  the  aborigines 
of  Louisiana,  they  were  flat-headed — which  was  a  pecu- 
liar shape  they  liked,  and  into  which  they  took  care  to 
mold  the  skulls  of  their  offspring  when  in  their  infancy. 
The  women  were  not  as  good-looking  as  the  men,  and 
were  generally  of  the  middle  size.  The  inferiority  of 
the  female  sex  to  the  male,  with  regard  to  the  beauty 
of  personal  appearance,  is  a  remarkable  fact  among  all 
the  Indian  tribes,  and  is,  no  doubt,  to  be  attributed  to 
the  state  of  degradation  in  which  their  women  are  kept, 
and  to  the  painful  labors  to  which  they  are  subjected. 

The  Natchez  had  shown  a  good  deal  of  acute  inven- 
tion in  providing  themselves  with  all  the  implements 
necessary  to  their  wants.  To  cut  down  timber,  they 
had  flint  axes  ingeniously  contrived,  and  to  sever  flesh, 
either  raw  or  cooked,  they  had  knives  made  up  of  a 
peculiar  kind  of  keen-edged  reed,  called  coiwhac.  They 
used  for  their  bows  the  Acacia  wood,  and  their  bow- 
strings were  made  either  with  the  barks  of  trees,  or  the 
skins  of  animals.  Their  arrows,  made  of  reed,  were 
winged  with  the  feathers  of  birds,  and  when  destined 
to  kill  buffaloes,  or  deer,  their  points  were  armed  with 
sharp  pieces  of  bone,  and  particularly  of  fish-bone.  The 
Natchez  understood  the  art  of  dressing,  or  preparing 
buffalo,  deer  and  beaver  skins,  and  those  of  other  ani- 
mals, so  as  to  provide  themselves  with  very  comfortable 
clothing  for  the  winter,  and  they  used,  as  awls  for  sew- 
ing, small  thin  bones,  which  they  took  from  the  legs  of 


290  THEIR  BUILDINGS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 

herons.  Their  huts  were  made  of  rude  materials,  such 
as  rough  timber  and  a  combination  of  mud,  sand,  and 
Spanish  moss  worked  together  into  a  solid  sort  of  mor- 
tar and  forming  their  walls,  to  which  they  gave  a  thick- 
ness of  four  inches.  The  roofs  were  of  intermingled 
grass  and  reeds,  so  skillfully  put  together,  that  these 
roofs  would  last  twenty  years  without  leaking.  The 
huts  were  square,  and  usually  measured  fifteen  feet  by 
fifteen ; — some,  however,  such  as  those  of  the  chiefs,  had 
thirty  feet  square,  and  even  more.  They  had  no  other 
aperture,  for  egress  or  ingress,  or  for  admitting  light, 
than  a  door  which  generally  was  two  feet  wide  by  four 
in  height.  The  frames  of  the  beds  of  the  Natchez, 
which  rose  two  feet  from  the  floor,  were  of  wood,  but 
the  inside  was  a  soft  and  elastic  texture  of  plaited  or 
weaved  up  reeds :  and  those  unsophisticated  sons  of  na- 
ture had,  to  rest  during  the  day,  nothing  but  hard  and 
low  wooden  seats,  with  no  backs  to  lean  against. 

Their  agriculture,  before  they  became  acquainted 
with  the  French,  who  taught  them  the  use  of  wheat 
and  flour,  was  limited  to  the  cultivation  of  corn,  which 
they  knew  how  to  grind  with  a  wooden  apparatus. 
Their  women  had  arrived  at  considerable  proficiency  in 
the  manufacturing  of  earthenware,  and  they  made  all 
sorts  of  pots,  pitchers,  bottles,  bowls,  dishes  and  plates 
bearing  designs,  among  which  it  is  pretended  that 
Grecian  letters  and  Hebrew  characters  are  plainly  to  be 
discovered.  Their  crockery  was  generally  of  a  reddish 
color.  They  also  excelled  in  making  sieves,  bottles,  and 
winnowing  fans.  With  the  bark  of  the  linden  or  lime- 
tree,  they  made  very  beautiful  nets  to  catch  birds  or 
fish.  They  knew  how  to  dye  skins  in  several  colors,  of 
which  those  they  liked  best  were  the  white,  the  yellow, 
the  red,  and  the  black,  and  their  taste  was  to  use  them 
in  alternate  stripes.  The  skins  thus  dyed,  particularly 


THEIR  COSTUME.  291 

that  of  the  porcupine,  they  embroidered  with  consider- 
able art,  and  the  drawings  were  somewhat  of  a  gothic 
character.  They  also  made  bed-coverings  and  cloaks 
with  the  bark  of  the  mulberry-tree,  and  with  the 
feathers  of  turkeys,  ducks,  and  geese.  Like  the  other 
Indians,  the  Natchez  had  not  carried  very  far  the 
science  of  navigation,  and  to  cross  rivers,  they  had  im- 
agined to  scoop  the  trunks  of  trees,  which  they  shaped 
into  canoes.  Some  of  their  largest  canoes  measured 
forty  feet  in  length  by  four  in  width :  they  were  gen- 
erally made  to  carry  twelve  persons,  and  were  exceed- 
ingly light  These  boats  were  propelled  by  the  means 
of  paddles  six  feet  long. 

During  the  summer,  men  and  women  were  always 
half  naked  and  bare-footed,  except  when  traveling. 
Then  they  would  wear  shoes  made  of  the  skin  of  deer. 
For  ornaments,  they  wore  rings  or  painted  bones  through 
their  ears  and  noses,  and  in  the  shape  of  bracelets  round 
their  arms  and  legs.  They  were  also  very  fond  of 
painted  glass-beads,  which  they  interwove  in  their  hair, 
or  carried  round  their  necks  in  the  shape  of  collars,  to 
which  they  added  the  teeth  of  alligators,  or  the  claws 
of  wild  beasts.  These  same  painted  glass-beads  they 
also  used  in  ornamenting  their  leather  garments,  and 
they  composed  with  them  fanciful  embroideries.  The 
vermilion  with  which  they  painted  their  bodies  was 
one  of  their  favorite  embellishments,  together  with  the 
hieroglyphic  figures,  or  crude  heraldic  devices, with  which 
they  used  to  impregnate  their  skins  from  head  to  foot. 
On  being  made  acquainted  with  those  small  bells  with 
which  mules  are  decorated,  they  became  very  fond  of 
having  them  about  their  persons  in  as  great  profusion 
as  they  could,  and  were  delighted  with  the  merry  ring- 
ing which  attended  the  slightest  of  their  motions. 
They  shaved  the  back  part  of  their  heads  in  the  man- 


292  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

ner  practiced  by  the  religious  orders  among  the  Roman 
Catholics,  leaving  in  the  midst  of  the  crown  five  or  six 
locks  of  hair,  wherewith  to  tie  feathers.  The  rest  of 
the  hair  was  clipped  round,  friar-like,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  long  twisted  tuft  which  was  left  dangling  down 
on  the  left  shoulder,  and  at  the  extremity  of  which 
feathers  were  fastened  on  feast  days.  The  sovereign 
wore  round  the  head  a  net-work  of  black  thread,  to 
which  adhered  a  diadem  of  white  feathers  eight  inches 
in  height  on  the  forehead,  and  dwindling  down  to  four 
behind.  It  was  surmounted  by  a  tuft  of  for,  out  of  which 
shot  up  a  small  crest  of  horse-hair,  one  inch  and  a  half 
in  height,  and  painted  red : — it  had  a  picturesque  effect. 
As  soon  as  a  child  was  born,  the  mother  rose  up,  and 
going  to  the  next  stream,  washed  it  thoroughly.  Then 
she  came  back  to  her  hut,  and  placed  the  child  in  its 
cradle,  which  was  usually  two  feet  and  a  half  long,  by 
eight  or  nine  inches  in  width,  and  six  inches  in  height. 
This  cradle  made  of  reeds  was  very  light,  hardly 
weighing  two  pounds,  and  was  always  placed  on  the 
very  bed  of  the  mother,  so  that  she  might  conveniently 
nurse  her  child.  The  motion  of  the  cradle  was  not 
sideways,  as  of  those  used  by  Europeans,  and  which 
must  produce  the  unpleasant  sensation  experienced  in  a 
ship  rolling  at  sea,  but  forward  and  backward  like  one 
of  our  modern  rocking-chairs.  The  most  watchful  ma- 
ternal care  was  bestowed  upon  the  children,  who  were 
never  allowed  to  stand  on  their  legs  before  they 
were  strong  enough  to  make  the  attempt  without  too 
much  effort,  and  they  were  allowed  free  access  to  their 
milk  diet  from  the  parental  breast  as  long  as  they 
pleased,  unless  the  mother's  health,  or  her  peculiar  situ- 
ation, should  have  prevented  its  continuance.  Every 
day,  they  were  rubbed  with  oil,  to  render  their  limbs 


NATCHEZ  CHILDREN.  293 

more  flexible,  and  to  prevent  the  bites  of  flies  or  mos- 
quitoes. 

When  boys  reached  their  twelfth  year,  they  were 
committed  to  the  charge  of  the  oldest  man  of  their  re- 
spective families,  who  was  called  "  the  Ancient?  He 
undertook  to  superintend  their  education,  and  to  im- 
part to  them  all  necessary  knowledge  and  desired  qual- 
ifications. Under  his  tuition,  they  learned  to  swim,  to 
run,  to  jump,  to  wrestle,  and  to  practice  with  the  bow 
or  other  weapons,  and  they  received  from  his  lips  those 
moral  lessons  or  precepts  which  were  to  regulate  their 
behavior,  when  they  should  be  grown  into  manhood. 
A  bunch  of  hay,  as  big  as  the  fist,  was  generally  put  at 
the  top  of  a  stick,  as  a  target  at  which  they  shot  with 
their  arrows.  The  most  successful  carried  the  prize, 
and  received  the  praise  which  the  ancient  usually 
awarded  him  :  and  as  a  pre-eminent  distinction,  he  was 
styled  the  Young  Warrior.  The  next  one  in  skill  was 
called  the  Apprentice  Warrior.  It  is  to  be  remarked 
that  blows  were  never  given  to  boys  as  a  corrective, 
but  only  moral  means  were  resorted  to,  and  appeals 
were  made  to  their  feelings  of  pride  or  of  shame.  The 
most  profound  respect  was  paid  to  the  oldest  member 
of  every  family — to  the  ancient,  whose  decisions  were 
supreme,  and  received  with  the  most  implicit  obedience. 
Thus  the  head  of  a  family  was  called  father  by  all  its 
members,  however  distant  their  blood  relations  might 
have  been  to  him :  and  whenever  these  Indians  meant 
to  speak  of  him  from  whom  they  really  derived  their 
existence,  they  used  to  say,  my  true  fatlier,  in  contra- 
distinction to  the  word  father  applied  to  the  chief  of 
the  family.  In  old  times,  a  similar  respect  was  paid  by 
our  Caucasian  race  to  the  experience  and  dignity  of 
age,  but  now  it  is  a  custom,  the  breach  of  which  is 
much  more  faithfully  adhered  to  than  the  observance. 


294  TRADITIONS  AND  LANGUAGE 

When  three  years  old,  the  children  of  both  sexes 
were  every  morning,  summer  or  winter,  taken  to  some 
stream  to  bathe  in,  and  in  this  way  they  learned  how 
to  swim,  and  at  the  same  time  they  fortified  their  bodies 
so  as  to  endure  with  ease  the  hardships  to  which  they 
would  be  exposed  in  the  course  of  their  lives.  But  as 
it  is  the  case  with  all  the  Indians  of  North  America, 
the  men  were  educated  to  be  only  warriors  and  hunters, 
and  the  women  to  do  all  the  work  and  drudgery  which 
were  necessary  for  the  comfort  of  their  own  existence 
and  that  of  the  lordly  sex  which  kept  them  sunk  down 
to  a  state  of  profound  inferiority.  In  one  thing,  how- 
ever, they  were  superior  to  more  civilized  nations — 
quarrels  and  fights  were  exceedingly  rare  among  them. 
The  penalty  for  such  transgressions  was  to  live  for  a 
certain  time  in  utter  seclusion,  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
tribe,  the  culprits  being  considered  as  having  forfeited 
their  character,  and  as  being  unworthy  of  associating 
with  decent  and  respectable  people.  The  fear  of  the 
infliction  of  such  a  disgrace  had  always  proved  to  be  a 
very  effective  preventive.  In  fact,  the  education  which 
the  Natchez  received  made  them  so  cautious  of  tres- 
passing on  each  other's  rights,  that  the  few  penal  laws 
which  existed  among  them  had  seldom  to  be  enforced. 

As  they  were  ignorant  of  the  art  of  writing,  their 
history  consisted  in  tradition  handed  down  from  one 
generation  to  another ;  but  in  order  to  secure  to  it  as 
much  authenticity  as  possible,  a  certain  number  of  their 
most  intelligent,  discreet,  and  trustworthy  young  men 
were  selected  to  be  educated  in  the  knowledge  of  their 
traditionary  lore,  which  they  were  taught  and  sworn  to 
respect  as  sacred,  to  preserve  with  religious  fidelity,  and 
to  transmit  in  their  turn  to  their  successors,  with  exact 
minuteness.  They  were  called  the  repositories  of  the 
voice  of  the  past,  of  the  ancient  word  •  and  from  time  to 


OF  THE  NATCHEZ.  295 

time  they  were  requested  to  recite  before  the  old  men 
of  the  nation  what  had  been  deposited,  and  was  to  be 
treasured  up  in  their  memory,  in  order  that  it  might  be 
ascertained  whether  they  would  make  themselves  guilty 
either  of  omissions  arising  from  design,  oblivion,  indif- 
ference, and  carelessness,  or  of  additions  and  interpo- 
lations proceeding  from  the  exuberance  of  fancy,  or 
from  the  pruriency  of  invention.  This  shows  a  respect 
for  historical  truth  which  can  not  be  too  highly  com- 
mended, and  which  ought  to  be  set  up  as  an  example 
deserving  of  imitation  by  our  modern  recorders  of 
events. 

The  Natchez  had  two  languages ; — which  peculiarity 
existed  also  among  the  Peruvians.  One  was  called  the 
vulgar,  that  is,  the  dialect  reserved  for  the  common 
people,  who  were  permitted  to  speak  no  other.  The 
other  one  was  used  altogether  by  the  nobles  and  by 
the  women.  Both  these  languages  were  said  to  be  very 
rich,  and  had  no  affinity  to  each  other.  For  instance, 
he  who  would  have  wished  to  bespeak  the  attention  of 
a  plebeian,  would  have  said  " aquenan"  listen,  and  to 
a  noble,  " magani"  which  has  exactly  the  same  mean- 
ing ;  to  a  plebeian,  "  tacJite  cabanacte"  is  it  tlwu  f  and 
to  a  noble,  " apape-gouya-iclie ;"  to  a  plebeian,  "petchi" 
sit  doivn,  and  to  a  noble,  "  caJiam."  In  the  language 
of  the  vulgar,  "  coustind'1  signified  spirit,  and  "  tcliite" 
meant  great.  In  the  language  of  the  nobles,  the  word 
"  coyocop""  meant  spirit,  and  "ctiquip"  great.  These 
examples  are  sufficient  to  show  the  want  of  analogy 
which  existed  between  these  two  languages.  The  wo- 
men, as  I  have  already  said,  spoke  the  language  of  the 
nobles,  but  with  an  affected  and  quaint  pronunciation, 
totally  different  from  that  of  the  men.  The  French, 
who  associated  more  with  the  women  than  with  the 
other  sex,  had  taken  their  pronunciation;  which  cir- 


296  THEIR  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

cumstance  provoked  a  rebuke  addressed  to  one  of  them 
by  a  Natchez  magnate :  "  Since  thou  hast  the  preten- 
sion to  be  a  man,"  said  the  chief  to  the  Frenchman, 
"  why  dost  thou  lisp  like  a  woman  ?" 

The  Natchez  believed  in  a  Supreme  Creator  of  the 
universe,  and  they  designated  him  by  the  name  of  Coyo- 
cop  chile,  which  meant,  Coyocop,  spirit  •  chile,  infinitely 
great.  They  thought  that,  as  they  expressed  it,  "  all 
they  saw,  all  they  might  see,  and  all  they  were  not  able  to 
see?  proceeded  from  him — that  he  was  so  good  and 
kind  that  he  could  not  do  harm  if  he  wished;  that 
mere  conception  and  volition  on  his  part  had  been  suf- 
ficient to  generate  every  thing ;  that  there  were  how- 
ever subordinate  spirits,  called  Coyocop  techou,  who 
were  perpetually  standing  in  his  presence,  and  implicitly 
obeying  his  mandates  like  slaves;  that  every  thing 
which  was  bad  and  calamitous  in  this  world  was  pro- 
duced by  evil  spirits  as  invisible  as  the  air  in  which 
they  lived ;  that  these  evil  spirits  formerly  had  a  chief 
who  worked  so  much  mischief,  that  the  Great  Spirit 
had  chained  him  in  a  dark  cell,  since  which  time  the 
evil  spirits,  his  subjects,  were  not  so  constantly  bent 
upon  doing  injury,  particularly  when  they  were  soft- 
ened by  respectful  prayers.  Whenever  the  Natchez 
wished  for  rain  or  fair  weather,  they  had  recourse  to 
fasting,  and  frequently  on  such  occasions  their  sov- 
ereign, the  Great  Sun,  would,  during  nine  consecutive 
days,  abstain  from  meat  and  fish,  and  live  altogether 
on  a  little  boiled  corn.  He  would  also  take  particular 
care,  during  all  that  time,  to  have  no  intercourse  of 
any  kind  with  his  wives.  The  Natchez  believed  in  a 
deluge  which  had  destroyed  mankind  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  people,  who  had  taken  refuge  on  a  high 
mountain,  and  who  had  repeopled  the  earth. 

According  to  the  religious  creed  of  the  Natchez,  the 


THEIR  FIRST  RULER  AND  LAWGIVER.  297 

Great  Spirit  had  molded  the  first  rnan  out  of  the  same 
kind  of  clay  with  which  they  made  their  crockery,  and 
"being  satisfied  with  his  work,  had  breathed  life  into 
it.  As  to  woman,  they  did  not  know  exactly  how  she 
had  been  created.  There  were  various  traditions  on 
this  subject.  One  of  them  reported,  that  a  short  time 
after  the  first  man  was  gifted  with  existence,  he  was 
taken  with  a  violent  fit  of  sneezing,  when  something  in 
the  shape  of  a  woman,  as  big  as  the  thumb,  bolted  from 
his  nose,  and  on  falling  on  the  ground,  kept  on  dancing 
with  extreme  velocity  until  it  grew  into  the  present 
size  of  the  female  sex. 

Many  centuries  before  the  Natchez  came  to  the  banks 
of  the  Mississippi,  they  were  living  in  a  condition  of 
almost  brutish  ignorance,  when  there  appeared  among 
them  a  man  and  a  woman  who  had  descended  from  the 
sun.  They  were  clothed  all  over  with  light,  and  looked 
so  dazzlingly  bright  that  no  human  eye  could  long 
dwell  upon  their  forms.  This  man  told  them  that  from 
the  realms  of  the  sun  he  had  seen  that  they  were  the 
miserable  victims  of  anarchy,  because  they  had  no  mas- 
ter, and  did  not  know  how  to  govern  themselves,  while 
every  one  of  them,  although  incapable  of  self-govern- 
ment, thought  that  he  was  competent  to  rule  over  the 
rest  of  his  race.  Wherefore,  he  had  taken  the  deter- 
mination to  come  down  upon  earth  to  teach  the  Natchez 
how  to  live.  His  moral  precepts  were  few  in  number, 
and  suited  to  the  circumstances  of  the  people  he  in- 
tended to  legislate  for.  The  most  important  ones  were, 
not  to  kill  any  human  being  except  in  self-defense ;  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  possession  of  one's  own  wife,  and  not 
to  covet  that  of  any  other  man ;  never  to  tell  a  lie ;  never 
to  be  inebriated ;  and  never  to  take  the  property  of 
another.  He  also  strongly  recommended  generosity, 


298  THE  LAWS  OF  THE 

charity,  and  the  distribution  of  one's  goods  among  the 
destitute. 

This  man  spoke  with  such  authority  that  he  pro- 
duced the  deepest  impression  on  the  Natchez.  While 
he  was  reposing  with  his  wife  in  the  hut  to  which  they 
had  conducted  him,  the  old  men  of  that  nation  met  in 
a  solemn  conclave  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  and  the 
next  morning  they  went  in  great  ceremony  to  the 
wonderful  stranger  to  propose  to  him  to  be  their  sov- 
ereign. He  refused  at  first,  saying,  he  knew  he  would 
not  be  obeyed,  and  that,  much  to  his  regret,  this  want 
of  obedience  would  be  death  to  all  the  Natchez.  But 
yielding  at  last  to  repeated  solicitations,  he  accepted 
on  the  following  conditions :  that  the  Natchez  would 
emigrate  to  a  better  country,  which  he  would  point  out 
to  them ;  that  they  would  live  strictly  according  to  the 
laws  to  be  established  by  him,  and  that  their  sovereigns 
would  forever  be  of  his  race.  "If  I  have,"  said  he, 
"any  male  and  female  issue,  there  shall  be  no  inter- 
marriage among  them,  they  being  brothers  and  sisters. 
But  they  shall  be  permitted  to  wed  from  the  bulk  of 
the  people.  The  first-born  of  my  sons  shall  be  my 
successor,  and  then  the  son  of  his  eldest  daughter,  or  in 
case  he  should  have  no  daughter,  the  son  of  his  eldest 
sister,  or  in  his  default,  the  eldest  son  of  the  nearest  fe- 
male relation  of  the  sovereign,  and  so  on  in  perpetuity." 

Then  he  went  into  the  minutest  details  concerning 
the  laws  of  succession  to  the  throne,  and  provided  for 
all  possible  contingencies.  •  He  called  down  fire  from 
the  sun,  and  ordered  that  it  should  be  eternally  kept 
up  with  walnut  wood,  stripped  of  its  bark,  in  two  tem- 
ples, to  be  built  at  the  two  farthest  extremities  of  the 
country  to  be  occupied  by  the  Natchez.  According  to 
his  instructions,  a  body  of  eight  men  was  selected  out 
of  the  nation  as  ministers  or  priests  for  each  temple. 


FIRST  RULER.  .      299 

Their  duty  was  to  watch  in  turn  the  sacred  fire,  and  on 
its  being  extinguished,  the  guardian  then  on  the  watch 
was  to  be  punished  with  death.  The  mysterious  law- 
giver that  had  come  from  the  sun,  predicted  the  most 
awful  calamities  to  the  Natchez,  if  the  sacred  fire  was 
ever  allowed  to  go  out  entirely  in  both  temples. 
Should  it  be  extinguished  in  one,  the  guardians  were  to 
relight  it  by  hurrying  to  the  other  temple.  But  they 
were  not  to  be  allowed  to  borrow  the  sacred  fire  peace- 
ably. They  were  to  fight  for  the  holy  spark,  and  were 
not  to  carry  it  away  before  shedding  blood  in  the  con- 
test, on  the  floor  of  the  temple,  as  a  sort  of  propitiatory 
offering  to  the  evil  spirits. 

Implicit  obedience  was  sworn  to  all  the  mandatory 
dispositions  of  the  new  sovereign,  and  he  signified  that 
he  wished  to  be  called  " the"  which  meant  " thee.n  He 
lived  to  very  old  age,  saw  the  children  of  his  grand- 
children, and  was  the  author  of  all  the  institutions 
which  prevailed  among  the  Natchez,  until  that  nation 
was  destroyed.  He  certainly  was,  in  the  most  emphatic 
sense  of  the  word,  their  supreme  legislator,  their  Ly- 
curgus.  After  his  death  his  children  were  called  owns, 
on  account  of  their  origin.  He  established  no  sacrifices, 
no  libations,  no  offerings.  The  only  worship  which  he 
prescribed,  if  it  can  be  so  called,  was  the  keeping  of  the 
sacred  fire,  and  one  of  the  first  duties  of  the  Great  Sun 
was  to  watch  over  the  strict  fulfillment  of  this  charge, 
and  to  visit  one  of  the  temples  every  day  for  this  pur- 
pose. 

The  Natchez  had  great  national  festivals,  which  partook 
of  a  religious  and  political  character.  These  festivals 
were  religious  in  one  sense,  as  being  instituted  with  the 
object  of  returning  thanks  to  the  Creator  for  his  manifold 
benefits ;  and  they  were  also  essentially  of  a  political 
nature,  as  they  were  the  only  sources  of  the  revenue  of 


300  DIVISION  OF  THE  MONTHS. 

the  sovereign ;  because,  although  despotic  in  his  author- 
ity, and  the  absolute  master  of  the  lives  and  property 
of  his  subjects,  he  never  imposed  taxation  nor  levied 
contribution,  and  he  remained  satisfied  with  the  presents 
which  were  made  to  him  on  these  great  festivals. 

For  the  Natchez,  the  year  opened  in  March,  and  was 
divided  into  thirteen  moons.  The  thirteenth  moon 
was  added  to  make  the  course  of  that  planet  correspond 
with  that  of  the  sun,  and  to  complete  the  year.  On 
every  new  moon  a  great  feast  was  celebrated,  and  took 
its  name  from  the  fruits  which  had  been  gathered,  from 
the  game  which  had  been  pursued,  or  from  the  usual 
occupations  of  the  people  during  the  preceding  moon. 
Thus,  the  year  began  in  March  with  the  celebration  of 
the  moon  of  the  deer.  It  was  the  most  joyous  and  the 
most  important  celebration.  There  was  rehearsed  a 
sort  of  dramatic  performance,  recalling  the  memory  of 
an  historical  event  which  had  left  a  deep  impression 
upon  the  Natchez. 

In  days  of  old,  a  Great  Sun,  having  heard  the  uproar 
of  a  sudden  tumult  in  his  village,  issued  precipitately 
from  his  dwelling,  to  appease  what  he  supposed  to  be  a 
quarrel  among  his  people,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  a 
hostile  nation,  by  which  his  capital  had  been  surprised. 
But  the  Natchez  recovering  from  their  astonishment 
and  dismay,  came  in  time  to  the  rescue,  delivered  their 
sovereign,  and  put  to  flight  their  enemies  with  immense 
slaughter.  In  commemoration  of  this  honorable  event 
in  their  history,  their  warriors,  at  the  beginning  of 
every  year,  in  the  moon  of  tJie  deer,  would  divide  them- 
selves into  two  bodies,  made  distinct  by  the  colors  of 
their  feathers.  Those  who  represented  the  Natchez, 
wore  white  feathers,  and  those  who  acted  the  enemy, 
sported  red  feathers.  Both  these  troops  put  themselves 
in  ambuscade  near  the  residence  of  the  sovereign.  The 


DIVISION  OF  THE  MONTHS.  301 

enemies,  commanded  by  the  Great  Chief  of  tlie  War- 
riors, who  was  always  the  most  distinguished  general 
of  the  tribe,  some  such  thing  as  an  Alexander,  a  Caesar, 
a  Bonaparte,  or  a  Wellington,  were  the  first  to  issue 
from  their  place  of  concealment,  and  approached  with 
slow  steps  the  house  of  the  Great  Sun,  but  shouting  all 
the  while  to  the  full  top  of  their  voices,  and  distorting 
their  bodies  into  every  sort  of  fantastic  contortions. 
Then  the  Great  Sun  came  out  full  dressed,  but  rub- 
bing his  eyes  as  if  just  awaking.  The  foes,  shouting 
their  death-cry,  threw  themselves  upon  him  and  carried 
him  away. 

In  their  turn,  the  Natchez  came  rushing  on,  and  en- 
countered their  enemies  with  terrific  howls  and  shrieks, 
making  an  appalling  compound  of  all  the  tones  and  ex- 
clamations expressive  of  fear,  anger,  despair  and  re- 
venge. Then  followed,  during  half  an  hour,  a  scene  of 
mimic  warfare,  in  which  both  parties  displayed  all  the 
stratagems  they  could  invent,  and  all  the  military  skill 
they  possessed.  During  all  that  time,  prodigies  of  valor 
were  performed  by  the  Great  Sun,  who  stoutly  de- 
fended himself  with  a  wooden  tomahawk.  The  ene- 
mies by  whom  he  was  enveloped,  fell  in  heaps  under 
his  simulated  blows,  and  strewed  the  ground  with  their 
corpses.  At  last,  the  Natchez  succeeded  in  routing  the 
hostile  warriors,  whom  they  pursued  to  a  considerable 
distance ;  and  delighted  with  such  a  complete  and  glo- 
rious victory,  they  returned  to  their  village,  bearing 
aloft  in  triumph  their  sovereign,  making  the  welkin 
ring  with  their  joyous  shouts,  which  were  merrily  re- 
sponded to  by  the  echoes  of  their  hills.  The  old  men, 
the  women  and  children  came  forward  to  meet  the  re- 
turning host,  and  joined  with  noisy  demonstrations  in 
the  general  jubilation.  The  French  writers  report  that* 
the  spectacle  of  this  mimic  battle  was  exceedingly  in- 


302  DIVISION  OF  THE  MONTHS. 

teresting,  and  that  it  was  so  true  to  nature  in  all  its  in- 
cidents, and  produced  such  a  complete  illusion,  that  no 
one  could  witness  it  without  the  liveliest  excitement. 

The  Great  Sun,  being  escorted  back  to  his  dwelling, 
retired  to  rest,  and  while  he  was  reposing,  his  subjects, 
who  feigned  to  be  ignorant  whether  he  was  wounded 
or  not,  rambled  about  the  village,  uttering  groans  and 
plaintive  sighs.  After  the  lapse  of  about  half  an  hour, 
the  Great  Sun  came  out,  bareheaded,  and  without  his 
crown.  He  was  joyfully  and  respectfully  saluted  with 
shouts  and  every  demonstration  of  enthusiastic  greeting. 
But  profound  silence  ensued  among  the  people,  when 
they  saw  their  sovereign  advancing  in  the  direction  of 
the  temple.  When  in  front  of  the  edifice,  he  bowed 
with  profound  reverence,  as  if  in  adoration.  Then  he 
gathered  dust,  which  he  threw  back  over  his  head,  and 
turned  successively  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  world  in 
repeating  the  same  act  of  throwing  dust.  After  this, 
he  looked  fixedly  at  the  temple,  extended  both  his  arms 
horizontally,  as  motionless  as  a  statue,  and  praying  all 
the  while.  His  subjects  observed  the  deepest  silence 
while  this  was  going  on ;  and  on  his  returning  to  his 
house,  the  groans  of  the  people  recommenced,  and 
ceased  only  when  he  reappeared  with  the  royal  diadem 
round  his  temples.  Then,  his  throne,  which  was  a  stool 
four  feet  high,  decorated  with  curious  devices,  and  cov- 
ered with  a  fancifully  painted  skin,  was  brought  before 
his  door.  On  his  taking  his  seat,  his  warriors  threw 
over  his  shoulders  a  choice  buffalo  hide,  and  under  his 
feet  a  carpet  of  costly  furs.  The  rest  of  his  subjects 
and  the  women  presented  him  also  with  various  offer- 
ings, according  to  their  means.  This  was  the  first  trib- 
ute of  the  year  paid  to  the  sovereign. 

When  this  ceremony  was  over,  the  princes  of  the 
royal  blood,  called  the  Little  Suns,  entered  the  palace 


DIVISION"  OF  TH£  MONTHS.  303 

with  the  Great  Sun.  On  this  occasion,  if  there  were 
strangers  of  distinction  in  the  village,  they  were  invited 
to  dine  with  the  sovereign.  In  the  evening,  dances 
were  executed  round  the  royal  dwelling,  which  was 
built  on  an  artificial  mound,  measuring  eight  feet  in 
height  by  sixty  feet  square. 

The  second  moon,  which  corresponded  with  our 
month  of  April,  was  called  the  moon  of  strawberries. 
The  women  and  children  gathered  a  considerable  quan- 
tity of  this  fruit,  and  did  not  fail  to  present  to  the 
Great  Sun  his  full  share  of  the  harvest.  On  that  occa- 
sion, the  warriors  tendered  him  a  liberal  offering  of 
wild  ducks,  which  were  smoked  for  preservation.  This 
was  the  second  tribute. 

The  third  moon,  in  the  month  of  May,  was  called  the 
moon  of  old  corn,  in  which  they  feasted  on  the  balance 
of  corn  remaining  from  the  preceding  year,  after  having 
paid  to  their  sovereign  what  they  considered  his  due. 
This  was  the  third  tribute. 

The  fourth  moon,  or  June,  was  called  the  moon  of 
water-melons.  To  the  Great  Sun  was  offered  a  large 
supply  of  this  fruit,  and  of  fish  caught  in  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  carefully  pickled.  This  was  the  fourth 
tribute. 

The  fifth  moon,  or  the  month  of  July,  was  called  the 
moon  of  peaches.  Then,  the  sovereign  received  his  pro- 
vision of  wild  grapes  and  peaches.  It  was  his  fifth 
tribute. 

The  sixth  moon,  or  the  month  of  August,  was  called 
the  moon  of  Uackberries.  Full  baskets  of  this  fruit 
were  laid  before  the  Great  Sun,  and  he  was  abundantly 
supplied  with  every  kind  of  domestic  fowl.  It  was  the 
sixth  tribute.  Every  one  of  those  moons  was  attended 
with  f eastings  and  rejoicings. 

The  seventh  moon,  or  the  month  of  September,  was 


304:  THE  MOON1  OF  CORN-. 

the  moon  of  new  corn,  the  celebration  of  which  con- 
sisted in  eating  in  common,  with  certain  religious  cere- 
monies, a  quantity  of  corn  which  had  been  planted  and 
cultivated  to  that  effect.  To  plant  that  corn,  a  space 
of  uncleared,  virgin  land  was  selected  and  prepared  for 
cultivation  by  the  warriors,  who  used  fire  to  kill  the 
trees,  and  to  remove  the  grass,  furz,  canes,  or  other 
vegetable  rubbish  which  might  encumber  the  ground. 
On  the  land  being  ready,  the  corn  had  to  be  planted 
by  the  warriors,  under  the  command  of  the  war-chief. 
None  were  allowed  to  work  in  the  sacred  field  but  the 
warriors,  and  it  would  have  amounted  to  profanation, 
deserving  of  death,  for  any  other  person  to  join  in  that 
labor.  When  this  corn  began  to  ripen,  the  warriors 
chose  a  well-shaded  spot,  where  they  constructed  a  barn 
in  the  shape  of  a  large  round  tower.  They  called  it 
"  Momo  ataop,"  which  signified,  barn  of  value.  When  the 
barn  was  filled  up  with  the  new  corn,  the  sovereign  was 
informed  of  that  fact,  and  fixed  the  day  on  which,  in 
his  presence,  it  was  to  be  eaten  in  common.  Then, 
temporary  huts,  made  for  the  occasion,  with  the  lopped 
off  branches  of  trees,  with  sweet-smelling  grass,  fresh 
leaves,  and  green  moss,  were  erected  for  the  Great  Sun, 
and  all  his  people,  to  protect  them  against  the  inclem- 
encies of  the  weather,  during  the  feast,  which  always 
lasted  several  days.  At  dawn,  on  the  day  appointed, 
all  the  old  men  and  the  adults,  the  women  and  children, 
departed  with  the  necessary  utensils,  to  make  the  re- 
quired preparations.  The  war-chief  placed  sixteen  war- 
riors, among  whom  were  eight  veterans,  at  the  door  of  the 
sovereign,  and  eight  others  at  regular  intervals  of  one 
hundred  paces  each,  from  the  royal  dwelling  to  the 
place  of  rendezvous.  Their  duty  was  to  act  as  sedan- 
bearers  to  the  Great  Sun.  After  making  these  disposi- 
tions, the  war-chief  went  to  the  meeting-place,  where, 


THE  MOON  OF  CORK.  305 

.putting  himself  at  the  head  of  the  rest  of  the  warriors, 
he  patiently  waited  for  the  arrival  of  the  sovereign. 

Now,  the  royal  sedan  is  at  the  door  of  the  palace. 
Its  four  arms  are  painted  red,  and  its  body  is  richly  dec- 
orated with  fancifully  painted  and  embroidered  deer- 
skins, with  leaves  of  the  magnolia,  and  with  garlands 
of  white  and  red  flowers.  Out  conies  the  sovereign  in 
full  dress,  and  with  all  the  marks  of  his  dignity.  The 
sixteen  warriors,  stationed  at  his  door,  utter  successive 
shouts  as  loud  as  human  lungs  will  allow.  The  eight 
warriors  who  are  placed  at  a  distance  of  one  hundred 
steps,  repeat  these  shouts  with  the  same  vehemence, 
which  shouts  are  almost  instantaneously  transmitted 
from  throats  to  throats  to  the  place  where  the  people 
are  congregated,  and  where  they  are  informed  in  this 
way  of  the  coming  of  their  sovereign.  On  his  issuing 
from  his  door,  the  eight  old  veterans  lift  him  up  into 
the  sedan  supported  by  the  eight  other  warriors,  who 
depart  with  him  full  speed,  and  run  as  fast  as  they  can. 
At  every  hundred  steps,  the  sovereign  finds  a  fresh  re- 
lay of  eight  men,  and  travels  with  the  greatest  rapid- 
ity, followed  by  those  who  have  successively  borne  him, 
and  who  utter  deafening  shouts,  which  are  nothing, 
however,  to  those  bellowed  forth,  when  he  appears  in 
sight  of  the  whole  nation  assembled.  He  is  first  carried 
in  triumph  round  the  barn,  which  he  salutes  respect- 
fully with  three  howls,  to  which  the  people  respond 
with  nine  distinct  and  measured  howls.  Then  he  as- 
cends his  throne,  and  familiarly  converses  with  his 
nobles.  During  that  time,  what  is  called  new  fire,  is 
made  by  rubbing  two  sticks  together.  Every  other 
kind  of  fire  would  be  looked  upon  as  profane.  When 
all  is  ready,  the  war-chief  presents  himself  before  the 
throne  of  the  Great  Sun,  and  says  to  him,  "  Speak — -I 
wait  for  thy  command."  Then  the  Great  Sun  rises, 
u 


THE  MOON  OF  CORX. 


bows  reverentially  to  tlie  four  quarters  of  the  world, 
beginning  with  the  East.  He  next  raises  his  hands  and 
eyes  toward  heaven  and  says,  "  Let  the  corn  be  dis- 
tributed." The  war-chief  thanks  him  with  one  pro- 
longed howl,  the  princes  and  princesses  with  three 
howls,  and  the  common  people  with  nine,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  women  and  children,  who  observe  a  pro- 
found silence. 

After  a  certain  lapse  of  time,  when  it  is  supposed  that 
the  repast  is  prepared,  the  word-bearer,  or  chancellor  of 
the  Great  Sun,  says  to  the  master  of  ceremonies  :  "  See 
if  the  victuals  are  properly  cooked."  Then,  two  dishes 
of  corn  are  brought  to  the  Great  Sun,  who  goes  out  of 
his  hut,  presents  them  to  the  four  quarters  of  the 
world,  and  sending  one  of  them  to  the  war-chief,  says, 
Pachcou,  eat, — a  command  which  his  subjects  joyfully 
and  eagerly  obey.  The  warriors  eat  first,  then  the 
young  men  and  boys,  and  next,  the  women  and  young 
girls.  When  the  warriors  have  done,  they  form  them- 
selves into  two  opposite  bands,  occupying  two  sides  of 
a  square  fitted  up  for  the  occasion,  and  they  sing  with 
alternate  choruses  during  about  half  an  hour.  Those 
songs  are  always  of  a  warlike  character.  The  war- 
chief  puts  an  end  to  that  concert,  by  striking  with  his 
tomahawk  the  red  post  which  is  erected  in  the  midst 
of  the  square,  and  which  is  called  the  Warriors  post. 
Then  begins  what  may  be  called  the  declamation  scene, 
which  is  opened  by  the  war-chief.  With  an  emphatic 
tone  he  relates  his  exploits,  and  boasts  of  the  number 
of  foes  he  has  killed.  He  concludes  by  making  an  ap- 
peal to  the  bystanders  in  confirmation  of  the  truth  of 
his  assertions,  to  which  they  assent  with  a  loud  ululates 
or  howl.  All  the  warriors  follow  the  example  of  their 
chief,  according  to  their  rank,  and  like  him  recite  their 
heroic  deeds.  In  their  turn,  the  young  men  are  al- 


THE  MOON  OF  CORN.  307 

lowed  to  strike  the  painted  post,  and  to  say,  not  what 
they  have  done  (their  military  career  not  having  yet 
begun),  but  what  they  intend  to  do.  The  youths  that 
speak  well  are  encouraged  with  a  howl  from  the  war- 
riors, who,  when  they  disapprove,  show  it  by  hanging 
down  their  heads,  and  remaining  silent.  The  desire  to 
elicit  the  approbation  of  their  superiors  excites  the 
warmest  emulation  among  the  young  men,  and  taxes  to 
the  utmost  all  the  energies  of  their  minds. 

When  night  comes,  two  hundred  torches  made  of  dry 
reeds,  and  frequently  renewed,  illumine  the  square, 
where  the  Indians  dance  until  daylight.  There  is  great 
monotony  in  these  dances.  A  man  sits  down  with  a 
large  kettle  in  which  there  is  a  little  water,  and  which 
is  covered  over  with  deer-skin  drawn  as  tight  as  possi- 
ble. With  one  hand,  he  holds  the  kettle  between  his 
legs,  and  with  the  other  he  beats  time  on  this  kind  of 
rude  drum.  The  women  form  a  circle  round  him  at  a 
certain  distance  from  each  other,  and  have  their  hands 
thrust  into  a  ring  of  feathers  which  they  twirl  round 
their  wrists,  while  they  move  in  cadence  from  left  to 
right.  The  men  form  another  circle  next  to  the  one  of 
the  women,  aud  keep  at  a  distance  of  six  feet  from 
each  other.  Every  one  of  them  has  his  chichicois,  with 
which  he  keeps  time.  The  chichicois  is  a  sort  of  oblong 
gourd  bored  at  both  extremities :  through  these  holes 
a  stick  is  run,  the  longest  outside  part  of  which  serves 
as  a  handle.  In  the  gourd  there  are  small  stones,  or 
dry  beans,  which,  when  shaken,  produce  a  considerable 
noise.  As  the  women  turn  in  dancing  from  left  to 
right,  the  men  move  from  right  to  left.  The  dancers, 
when  fatigued,  withdraw,  and  are  often  replaced  by 
others.  In  proportion  as  the  number  of  dancers  in- 
creases or  diminishes,  the  circles  grow  larger  or  smaller. 

The  next  day,  the  Indians  do  not  leave  their  huts 


308  NATIONAL  CHARACTER 

before  they  are  summoned  out  by  the  Great  Sun,  who, 
at  nine  o'clock,  makes  his  appearance  on  the  public 
square,  and  where,  having  promenaded  for  some  time 
with  the  war-chief,  he  orders  the  kettle-drum  to  be 
beaten.  Then  the  warriors  come  out  of  their  huts,  and 
form  themselves  into  two  bands,  to  play  at  tennis.  The 
one,  with  white  feathers,  is  headed  by  the  Great  Sun, 
and  the  other,  with  red  ones,  by  the  war-chief.  The 
game  is :  for  one  party  to  drive  the  tennis  ball  in  the 
direction  of  the  hut  of  the  Great  Sun,  so  as  to  make  it 
strike  the  hut,  and  for  the  other  party  to  oppose  it, 
and  to  push  the  same  ball  toward  the  dwelling  of  the 
war-chief,  with  a  similar  intent.  The  contest  generally 
lasts  two  hours,  and  is  at  an  end  when  the  ball  strikes 
either  hut.  Then  come  war-dances ;  and  in  the  evening, 
to  refresh  their  wearied  limbs,  the  people  amuse  them- 
selves with  bathing.  This  feast  continues  until  the  corn 
is  eaten  up,  with  the  exception  of  what  is  reserved  for 
the  Great  Sun,  who  alone  has  the  privilege  of  carrying 
some  of  it  away.  It  constitutes  the  seventh  tribute. 

October  is  the  moon  of  the  turkeys  /  November,  the 
moon  of  tlie  buffaloes  •  then  follow  the  moon  of  tJie 
bears,  the  moon  of  the  geese,  the  moon  of  the  chestnuts, 
and  the  moon  of  the  walnuts.  On  each  of  these  moons, 
the  Great  Sun  receives  his  monthly  tribute. 

There  were  some  very  remarkable  traits  in  the  na- 
tional character  of  the  Natchez,  among  which  was  the 
pre-eminence  allowed  to  the  male  over  the  female  sex. 
In  all  assemblies,  either  public  or  private,  even  in  the 
privacy  of  the  family  circle,  the  youngest  boys  had  the 
precedency  over  the  oldest  women,  and  when  all  the 
members  of  one  family  sat  down  to  their  meals,  a  boy, 
two  years  old,  received  his  food  before  his  mother  was 
helped.  Whatever  impression  this  circumstance  may 
have  produced  on  the  temper  of  the  Natchez  women,  it 


OF  THE  NATCHEZ.  309 

is  certain  that  so  much  docility  was  inculcated  by  edu- 
cation into  their  minds,  that  a  quarrel  between  husband 
and  wife  would  have  been  looked  upon  as  something 
monstrous. 

If  the  women  were  docile  and  very  industrious,  they 
were,  according  to  our  standard  of  morality,  extremely 
addicted,  when  unmarried,  to  the  lowest  profligacy. 
Strange  to  say,  this  profligacy  was  a  merit  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  Natchez.  Thus,  all  their  women,  while 
single,  were  allowed  to  sell  their  favors ;  and  she  who 
had  acquired  the  wealthiest  marriage  portion  by  this 
abominable  traffic,  was  looked  upon  as  having  the  most 
attraction,  and  as  being  far  superior  to  all  the  females 
of  her  tribe.  She  became  an  object  of  competition, 
and  received  the  homages  of  the  loftiest  and  most  re- 
nowned warriors.  However,  as  soon  as  they  were  mar- 
ried, these  professed  courtesans  were  immediately  trans- 
formed into  as  many  Lucretias,  and  both  husband  and 
wife  became  patterns  of  fidelity.  They  said,  in  expla- 
nation of  this  change  in  their  conduct,  "  that  having  sol- 
emnly given  away  their  persons,  they  had  no  longer  a 
right  to  dispose  as  they  pleased  of  that  which  they  had 
pledged  to  another."  The  married  woman  being  thus 
so  remarkable  for  fidelity,  industry,  and  docility,  matri- 
monial happiness  was  as  common  among  the  Natchez  as 
it  is  rare  among  other  people,  and  although  they  had 
the  right  of  repudiation,  they  very  seldom  exercised  it ; 
• — a  thing  which  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  since  no  one 
must  be  supposed  to  be  willing  to  renounce  the  sweet 
slumbers  which  he  enjoys  under  the  soft  rays  of  a  per- 
petual honey-moon. 

Marriages  were  never  contracted  without  the  unani- 
mous assent  of  the  elder  members  of  the  two  families- 
When  that  was  obtained,  the  two  heads  of  the  families, 
or  the  two  ancients,  or  fathers,  as  they  were  called,  met 


310  CELEBRATION  OF  MARRIAGE. 

and  settled  the  preliminary  conditions.  The  young  peo- 
ple were  never  forced  into  alliances  against  their  will, 
but  at  the  same  time  they  could  not  gratify  their  incli- 
nation without  its  being  approved  by  those  members 
of  their  families  to  whom  they  owed  respect  and  obedi- 
ence. It  was  thought  that  no  one  had  a  right  to  intro- 
duce into  a  family  a  member  that  would  not  be  accept- 
able. It  is  clear  that  the  philosophy  of  elopements  was 
not  understood  by  those  barbarians,  and  was  reserved 
for  a  more  refined  state  of  civilization. 

When  a  marriage  had  been  determined  upon,  the 
head  of  the  family  of  the  bride,  tlie  ancient,  went  with 
her  and  her  whole  family  to  the  residence  of  the  bride- 
groom, who  there  stood  surrounded  also  by  his  own 
family.  The  oldest  man  on  the  side  of  the  bridegroom 
welcomed  his  compeer  in:age  on  the  side  of  the  bride, 
with  this  brief  salutation :  "  Cabanacte" — is  it  tliou  f 
"  Manatte" — yes,  answered  the  other.  "  Petchi" — sit 
down,  replied  the  first.  Then  the  .whole  assembly  took 
seats,  and  the  most  grave  and  profound  silence  followed 
the  laconic  dialogue  which  I  have  related.  After  a 
lapse  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  the  oldest  man  rose,  and 
ordering  those  who  were  to  be  united  to  stand  before 
him,  he  addressed  to  them  an  allocution,  in  which  he 
recapitulated  all  the  duties  they  voluntarily  assumed, 
and  gave  them  abundant  and  wholesome  advice. 
"When  this  sermon  was  over,  the  father  of  the  bride- 
groom handed  to  his  son  the  present  which  he  was  to 
make  to  the  family  of  his  future  wife,  and  the  father  of 
the  bride  stepped  forward  and  put  himself  by  the  side 
of  his  daughter.  Then  the  bridegroom  said  to  the 
bride,  "Wilt  thou  have  me  for  thy  husband?"  She 
answered,  "  With  all  my  heart ;  love  me  as  much  as  I 
love  thee,  for  thou  art  and  thou  shalt  be  my  only  love." 
When  these  words  were  uttered,  the  bridegroom  held 


CELEBRATION  OF  MARRIAGE.  311 

over  the  head  of  his  bride  the  gift  which  he  presented 
to  her  family,  and  said,  "  I  love  thee :  therefore  do  I 
take  thee  for  my  wife :  and  here  is  the  present  with 
which  I  buy  thee  from  thy  parents."  Then  he  deliv- 
ered the  present  to  the  father  of  the  bride. 

The  bridegroom  wore  a  tuft  of  feathers  at  the  top  of 
the  plaited  lock  of  hair  which  fell  down  on  his  left 
shoulder,  and  at  the  lower  end  of  which  was  tied  an 
oak  twig  with  its  leaves.  In  his  left  hand  he  held  a 
bow  and  arrow.  The  tuft  of  feathers  was  an  emblem 
of  the  power  and  command  which  he  had  the  right  to 
exercise  in  his  household ;  the  oak  twig  signified  that 
he  was  not  afraid  of  going  to  the  woods  in  quest  of 
game ;  the  bow  and  the  arrows  meant  that  he  would 
always  be  ready  to  meet  a  foe,  and  to  defend  his  wife 
and  children. 

The  bride  had  in  her  left  hand  a  green  twig  of  the 
laurel  tree,  and  in  her  right  hand  an  ear  of  corn.  The 
laurel  twig  signified  that  she  would  preserve  her  fame 
ever  fair, and  smelling  as  sweet  as  the  laurel  leaf;  the 
ear  of  corn  meant  that  she  would  know  how  to  pre- 
pare it  for  her  husband's  food,  and  to  fulfill  the  other 
duties  imposed  upon  her  as  a  loving  and  a  dutiful  wife. 

When  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride  had  exchanged 
the  words  which  I  have  recited  in  the  preceding  para- 
graphs, the  bride  dropped  the  ear  of  corn  which  she 
held  in  her  right  hand,  and  tendered  that  hand  to  the 
bridegroom,  who  took  it  and  said,  "  I  am  thy  husband." 
She  replied,  "  I  am  thy  wife."  Then  the  bridegroom 
went  round,  and  grasped  the  hand  of  every  member  of 
the  family  of  his  wife.  When  this  was  over,  he  took 
her  by  the  arm  and  led  her  to  every  member  of  his 
own  family,  to  whom  she  was  introduced  by  him,  and  with 
whom  she  shook  hands.  In  conclusion,  he  walked  with 


312  THE  THREE  CLASSES  OF  THE  NATCHEZ. 

her  to  his  bed,  and  said  to  her,  "  Here  is  our  bed ;  keep 
it  undenled." 

Does  not  the  simple  relation  of  their  marriage  rites 
carry  the  mind  back  to  those  antique  customs  which 
Herodotus  has  described  in  such  bewitching  style  ? 
Are  they  not  impregnated  with  the  soft  graces  of  the 
poetry  of  Greece  ? — and,  at  the  same  time,  do  they  not 
assume  a  character  of  scriptural  austerity  and  beauty ! 
To  me  the  whole  scene  is  redolent  with  the  atmosphere 
of  Arabia,  and  conjures  up  in  my  imagination  the  glows 
and  tints  of  the  patriarchal  days  so  beautifully  de- 
scribed in  the  Holy  Book. 

The  nation  of  the  Natchez  was  composed  of  three 
classes :  the  Great  Sun,  or  the  sovereign,  and  the  Little 
Suns  who  constituted  the  nobility ;  then  came  the  men 
of  consideration  or  gentry.  The  plebeians  were  known 
under  the  appellation  of  "  miche  quipy,"  or  the  stinking. 
The  Natchez,  in  order  to  be  sure  that  their  sovereigns 
should  always  be  of  the  blood  of  the  man  who  had 
come  from  the  sun  to  civilize  them,  had  established  as 
a  fundamental  law  of  their  national  polity,  that  the 
right  of  succession  to  the  throne  should  be  imparted 
to  the  men  only  through  the  female  line.  Thus  the 
female  descendants  of  a  Great  Sun  always  remained 
noble,  and  retained  the  privilege  of  giving  birth  to  the 
sovereign ;  but  the  grandson  of  a  Great  Sun  was  no 
more  than  a  man  of  consideration,  and  his  great-grand- 
son became  a  plebeian — one  of  the  stinking — while 
nobility  was  perpetual  in  the  female  line.  After  some 
generations  the  nobles,  although  from  the  same  parent 
stock,  were  not  related  at  all,  or  not  at  least  within 
those  degrees  which  prevented  matrimonial  alliances ; 
and  yet  they  could  not  intermarry  on  account  of  two 
fundamental  laws :  one  prescribing  that  none  of  the  no- 
bility should  be  put  to  death,  and  the  other  ordaining 


EPISODE  OF  LE  PAGE  DTI  PRATZ.  313 

that,  after  the  death  of  a  male  or  female  noble,  his  wife 
or  her  husband  should  be  immolated.  The  nobles 
were  therefore  obliged  to  abstain  from  marrying  among 
their  equals;  which  obligation  was  revolting  to  the 
pride  of  many.  There  are  very  few  women  who  have 
not  a  leaning  to  aristocracy,  and  this  may  be  owing  to 
the  innate  distinction  of  their  nature. ,  Thus  it  appears 
that  this  custom,  which  forced  them  to  marry  among 
the  plebeians,  or  stinking,  had  become  offensive  to 
their  proud  and  delicate  nostrils.  Le  Page  du  Pratz 
relates  a  singular  attempt  made  by  one  of  them  to  pro- 
duce a  revolution,  or  a  change  in  the  organic  laws  of 
her  tribe. 

Le  Page  du  Pratz  had  lived  eight  years  in  the  French 
settlement  neaf~the  Natchez,  and  had  become  well 
known  among  those  Indians,  who  held  him  in  high 
esteem.  One  day  a  female  Sun  entered  his  room  with 
her  daughter,  a  girl  of  eighteen ;  she  locked  the  door 
carefully,  and  sat  down  for  a  few  minutes  in  deep  and 
dignified  silence.  Le  Page,  knowing  the  gravity  of 
Indian  manners,  wondered  all  the  while  at  the  meaning 
of  this  mysterious  visit,  but  said  nothing,  and  patiently 
waited  for  the  communication  which  would  be  made 
at  last.  After  having  rested  in  silence  as  long  as  she 
thought  becoming,  she  rose  and  thus  addressed  Le 
Page:  "We  all  know,  and  I  know  better  than  any 
body  else,  that  thou  art  a  true  man;  that  falsehood 
abideth  not  in  thy  heart,  and  that  thy  tongue  hateth 
the  profusion  of  words.  Thou  speakest  our  language. 
We  love  thee  as  a  brother,  and  we  regret  that  thou  art 
not  one  of  our  Suns.  I  have  matters  of  deep  import  to 
communicate — wherefore  open  thy  ears  and  thy  heart 
to  receive  the  impression  of  niy  words.  But  close  thy 
mouth,  and  never  trust  to  the  winds  what  I  am  to  say 
to  thee  in  secrecy !"  Here  she  stopped  again,  and  after 


314  LE  PAGE  DU  PRATZ  AND  THE 

a  short  silence  observed,  as  if  in  doubt,  "  But  shall  I  be 
listened  to  ?"  Now  she  remained  mute  for  a  consider- 
able time,  and  seemed  buried  in  profound  meditation. 
Le  Page,  whose  mind  was  teeming  with  conjectures 
about  this  strange  scene,  broke  the  silence  he  had  pre- 
served so  far,  and  said,  "  My  ea/s  are  open  as  thou 
wishest,  and  yet  I  hear  nothing  but  the  whistling  of  the 
wind." 

Then  she  resumed  her  discourse  in  this  manner: 
' "  My  daughter,  whom  thou  seest  here,  is  young ;  but  if 
she  has  the  weak  body  of  a  woman,  she  has  the  strong 
mind  of  a  man.  Therefore,  knowing  that  her  lips  are 
sealed,  I  have  not  feared  to  bring  her  with  me,  and  to 
let  her  hear  my  words  to  thee.  When  thy  countrymen 
speak,  I  listen,  because  although  many  are  light-headed, 
some  are  wise  and  know  much.  I  have  heard  them 
say  that  some  of  our  customs  are  bad  and  wrongful ; 
that  in  their  country  the  noble  marries  with  the  noble, 
and  the  ignoble  with  the  ignoble,  and  that  each  class 
fares  the  better  for  it ;  that  it  is  cruel  to  force  the  wife 
to  die  with  her  husband,  and  the  husband  with  the  wife ; 
that  the  Great  Spirit,  whose  laws  the  French  follow  as 
they  are  communicated  to  them  by  the  '  speaking  bart? 
which  he  gave  them,  frowns  on  such  a  barbarous  cus- 
tom ;  that  it  is  an  error  to  believe  that  husband  and 
wife  can  continue  to  live  as  such  in  the  world  of  spirits, 
because  spirits  have  no  solid  bodies  and  no  sexes,  where- 
fore they  can  not  cohabit  and  procreate ;  and  that  it 
is  foolish  in  the  Natchez  to  believe  that  they  will  have 
there  the  same  pleasures  and  avocations  which  they 
pursue  here.  I  have  pondered  on  their  remarks  con- 
cerning these  matters  and  many  others,  and  I  think 
they  talk  with  wisdom.  Our  customs  are  bad,  and  lead 
to  the  destruction  of  our  race.  But  how  are  we  to 
change  them  ?  Who  will  have  the  energy  and  power  to 


INDIAN'S  DAUGHTER.  315 

make  the  attempt,  and  to  crush  all  opposition  ?  There- 
fore have  I  come  to  thee  whom  I  *love,  trust,  and  re- 
spect. Marry  my  daughter ;  she  is  the  nearest  of  kin 
to  the  Great  Sun,  and  thy  son,  if  she  brings  one  to  thee, 
will  be  our  sovereign  on  a  future  day.  Educated  by 
thee,  and  supported  .by  the  French,  he  will  have  the 
mind,  the  will,  and  the  power  to  change  those  laws 
which  you  look  upon  as  nefarious." 

Le  Page  was  taken  by  surprise,  and  at  first  was  at  a 
loss  for  an  answer.  He  knew  that  there  are  certain 
propositions  of  which  women  never  forgive  the  rejec- 
tion ;  and  as  he  was  not  willing  to  incur  deadly  hostility, 
he  sought  to  frame  an  answer  which  would  make  his 
refusal  palatable.  "  Thy  daughter,"  said  he,  "  is  as  fair 
as  the  rainbow,  and  my  heart  leaps  toward  her.  But 
far  away,  at  the  place  where  I  was  born,  is  a  blue-eyed 
woman,  to  whom  I  am  married,  and  to  whom  I  must  re- 
turn as  soon  as  I  can.  While  she  lives,  the  God  whose 
laws  I  obey,  forbids  that  I  should  take  unto  my  bosom 
another  wife.  It  is  an  obstacle,  as  thou  seest,  which 
can  not  be  removed.  Therefore,  be  satisfied  with  my 
thanks  and  my  gratitude."  The  old  female  Sun  listen- 
ed with  evident  disappointment,  and  hung  down  her 
head  as  if  in  sorrow ;  but  she  gave  no  sign  of  ill-feeling 
or  resentment.  Saluting  Le  Page  with  truly  royal  dig- 
nity, and  putting  meaningly  her  index  on  her  lips,  she 
departed  with  her  daughter.  This  anecdote  has  a 
raciness  which  vouches  for  its  authenticity,  and  is  an 
interesting  illustration  of  the  ideas  which  were  originat- 
ing from  the  association  of  the  Natchez  with  the 
French. 

The  Natchez,  when  they  had  causes  of  war,  pursued, 
before  they  began  hostilities,  a  certain  preliminary 
course,  which,  being  almost  general  among  the  Indian 
tribes,  must  be  looked  upon  as  proceeding  from  a 


316  INDIAN  MODE  OF  DECLARING  WAR 

torn  which  must  have  been  their  law  of  nations.  The 
old  warriors  composed  what  was  called  the  council  of 
war,  to  deliberate  on  that  question.  If  they  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  their  nation  had  been  injured,  they 
sent  an  embassy  to  seek  redress.  If  that  redress  was 
granted,  they  smoked  the  calumet  of  peace,  which  was 
a  pipe  ornamented  with  a  variety  of  decorations,  and 
with  feathers  of  the  white  eagle  set  in  the  shape  of  a 
fan.  If  satisfaction  was  refused,  the  ambassadors  speed- 
ily returned  home,  and  the  warriors  assembled  for  the 
war-dance,  a  ceremony  during  which  they  smoked  the 
calumet  of  war,  which  was  shaped  like  the  calumet  of 
peace,  but  with  the  exception,  that  its  ornaments  and 
colors  were  different,  and  that  its  fan  was  composed  of 
the  feathers  of  the  flamingo.  Their  warriors  were 
divided  into  three  classes :  the  true  warriors,  or  those 
whose  courage  had  been  tried  on  all  occasions,  and  had 
invariably  been  found  the  same  at  all  times ;  the  ordi- 
nary warriors ;  and  the  apprentice  warriors,  or  young 
men,  who  were  beginning  their  military  career.  A  for- 
mal declaration  of  war  consisted  in  a  hieroglyphic  pic- 
ture, executed  in  a  rude  manner,  and  left  by  the  nation 
declaring  war,  near  the  principal  village  of  the  nation 
against  which  wrar  was  declared.  It  was  intended,  I  sup- 
pose, for  some  such  manifesto  as  is  published  in  our 
days,  on  the  like  occasions,  by  the  civilized  nations 
of  Christendom. 

When  war  was  resolved  on,  they  painted  their  bodies 
in  various  colors,  so  as  to  make  themselves  as  fright- 
fully-looking devils  as  possible,  and  prepared  for  battle 
by  feasting:  a  practice  which  they  held  in  common 
with  the  Spartans.  On  a  day  solemnly  fixed,  they 
gathered  in  circles  round  all  the  delicacies  which  they 
could  command,  such  as  fish,  deer,  buffalo,  or  bear 
meat,  either  fresh  or  smoked,  and  particularly  a  roasted 


DEPARTURE  ON  A  WARLIKE  EXPEDITION.  31 7 

dog,  which  was  a  dish  as  much  esteemed  by  them  as  a 
roasted  peacock  by  the  Romans:  corn  was  liberally 
used,  and  was  dressed  in  various  ways,  of  which  the 
most  relished  was  one  which  is  still  in  fashion  among 
the  old  French  population  of  Louisiana,  and  which  is 
called  "  sagamite?  They  drank  on  this  occasion  an 
exhilarating  beverage,  which  consisted  in  a  fermented 
liquor,  made  with  the  leaves  of  the  Cassia  berry- 
tree.  To  this  feast  the  warriors  always  came  fully 
equipped,  and  with  their  weapons  in  the  best  order. 
Before  the  warriors  partook  of  the  repast  set  before 
them,  the  oldest  among  them,  so  old  as  to  be  incapable 
of  active  service  in  the  field,  holding  the  calumet  of  war 
in  his  right  hand,  made  a  speech,  in  which  he  recited 
his  exploits,  and  exhorted  his  companions  to  emulate 
his  deeds.  One  of  them  once  concluded  his  address  in 
this  way :  I  give  it  as  a  sample  of  this  kind  of  oratory. 
"  Now,  my  brothers,"  said  he,  "  depart  with  confi- 
dence. Let  your  courage  be  mighty,  your  hearts  big, 
your  feet  light,  your  eyes  open,  your  smell  keen,  your 
ears  attentive,  your  skins  proof  against  heat,  cold, 
water,  and  fire.  If  the  enemy  should  be  too  powerful, 
remember  that  your  lives  are  precious,  and  that  one 
scalp  lost  by  you  is  one  cause  of  shame  brought  upon 
your  nation.  Therefore,  if  it  be  necessary,  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  fly,  and  in  that  case,  be  as  wary  as  the  serpent, 
and  conceal  yourselves  with  the  skill  of  the  fox,  or  of 
the  squirrel.  But  although  you  run  away,  do  not  for- 
get that  you  are  men,  that  you  are  true  warriors,  and 
that  you  must  not  fear  the  foe.  Wait  awhile,  and  your 
turn  will  come.  Then,  when  your  enemy  is  in  your 
power,  and  you  can  assail  him  with  advantage,  fling  all 
your  arrows  at  him,  and  when  they  are  exhausted,  come 
to  close  quarters,  strike,  knock  down,  and  let  your 
tomahawks  be  drunk  with  blood." 


318  THE  CEREMONIES  PREPARATORY  TO  WAR. 

This  rough  kind  of  eloquence  seldom  failed  to  pro- 
voke enthusiastic  shouts.  Satisfied  with  the  effect  he 
had  produced,  the  orator  filled  the  calumet  of  war  with 
tobacco,  drew  a  puff,  and  passed  the  instrument  to  the 
war-chief,  from  whom  it  circulated  among  the  rest  of 
the  warriors.  When  this  was  over,  the  war-chief  cut 
a  slice  of  the  roasted  dog,  the  other  warriors  did  the 
same,  and  ate  while  they  walked  very  fast,  to  signify 
that  a  good  warrior  ought  not  to  stop  even  to  take  his 
food,  that  he  ought  to  be  constantly  in  motion,  and 
ever  watchful  like  a  dog.  Then  they  sat  down  and  be- 
gan their  repast  in  earnest.  But  a  young  man,  who 
was  placed  in  ambuscade  at  a  distance  of  two  hundred 
or  three  hundred  steps,  suddenly  shouted  the  death- 
cry  ;  spontaneously  all  the  warriors  seized  their  weap- 
ons, and  ran  to  the  spot  from  which  issued  the  shout. 
When  they  came  to  it,  the  same  young  warrior  repeated 
the  same  shriek,  to  which  all  the  warriors  responded  in 
the  same  manner. 

Then,  they  came  back  together  to  continue  the  re- 
past which  they  had  abandoned,  but  hardly  were  they 
at  it,  when  another  young  man  repeated  the  same  ope- 
ration, which  produced  the  same  effects.  After  several 
interruptions  of  this  kind,  which  were  intended  as  prac- 
tical lessons,  the  war  beverage,  composed,  as  I  have  al- 
ready said,  with  the  leaves  of  the  cassia  berry-tree,  was 
introduced,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  warriors, 
who  partook  very  freely  of  the  intoxicating  liquor. 
When  the  eating  and  drinking  was  over,  the  warriors 
planted  the  war-post,  which  was  painted  red,  and  the 
top  of  which  was  shaped  so  as  to  represent  the  head  of 
a  man.  Every  warrior,  in  his  turn,  rushed  furiously  at 
the  post  and  struck  it  with  his  tomahawk,  in  uttering 
the  death-cry.  He  then  recited  his  exploits  with  em- 
phasis, and  insulted  the  war-post,  which  represented 


THEIR  MODE  OF  WARFARE.  319 

the  enemy.  He  concluded  his  taunting  speech  with  a 
tremendous  howl,  which  was  answered  by  the  other 
warriors.  When  every  one  of  them  had  gone  through 
this  monotonous  exhibition,  they  began  the  war-dance, 
which  they  executed  in  their  war-dress,  and  with  all 
their  weapons  about  their  persons.  While  the  war- 
riors were  thus  engaged,  the  rest  of  the  nation  assumed 
the  garb  of  affliction,  and  observed  a  strict  fast.  The 
war  feast  lasted  three  days :  after  which,  the  warriors 
marched  against  the  enemy  with  all  the  provisions  pre- 
pared for  them  by  their  wives.  ./. 
Pitched  battles  among  the  Indians  were  of  rare  oc- 
currence. War  with  them  consisted  in  ambuscades  and 
surprises.  They  delighted  in  picking  up  some  strag- 
glers from  the  nation  against  Avhich  they  were  warring 
— poor  wretches  who,  while  fishing,  hunting,  or  en- 
gaged in  some  other  peaceful  avocations,  were  startled 
by  the  unexpected  and  terrific  whoop  of  an  unmerciful 
foe.  But  the  greatest  of  all  exploits  for  them,  was,  to 
surprise,  a  village  at  night,  to  Mil  and  scalp  all  the  men, 
to  burn  down  to  the  ground  all  the  habitations,  and  to 
carry  away  all  the  women  and  children,  when  they  did 
not  kill  them  on  the  spot,  while  intoxicated  with  rage 
and  with  the  reeking  vapors  of  indiscriminate  slaughter. 
Then,  as  a  recording  monument,  and  in  glorification  of 
what  they  had  done,  they  nailed  to  a  tree  a  hiero- 
glyphic picture  with  two  bloody  arrows,  forming  the 
St.  Andrew's  cross.  After  this,  they  retreated  from 
the  enemy's  territory  with  the  utmost  speed,  and  had 
recourse  to  every  stratagem  to  conceal  the  route  they 
took,  in  order  to  escape  pursuit.  They  made  slaves  of 
their  prisoners  when  those  prisoners  were  women  and 
children,  and  they  cropped  short  the  hair  of  such  as 
were  thus  reduced  to  slavery.  But  when  it  was  a  man 
whom  they  carried  back  to  their  homes,  their  triumph 


320  THE  PRISONERS  TORTURED. 

was  complete,  because  the  whole  tribe  was  to  be  enter- 
tained with  the  spectacle  of  the  torments  to  be  inflicted 
on  the  prisoner. 

On  the  day  fixed  for  this   exhibition,  of  which  the 
Indians  were  as  fond  as  the  Romans  were  of  the  fio-hts 

O 

of  their  gladiators,  or  of  the  mutilation  of  human  beings 
by  wild  beasts  in  the  arena,  above  which  sat  sovereignty 
in  the  imperial  shape  of  a  Csesar,  two  posts,  ten  feet 
long,  were  driven  into  the  ground;  another  post  was 
placed  transversely  at  the  distance  of  two  feet  from  the 
soil,  and  another,  transversely  also,  at  the  distance  of 
five  feet  from  the  one  below.  Then  the  arms  and  legs 
of  the  patient  were  tied  to  the  four  right  angles  which 
were  thus  formed.  Before  this  was  done,  however,  the 
warrior  whose  prisoner  he  was,  stunned  him  with  the 
blow  of  a  wooden  tomahawk,  and  raised  his  scalp.  A 
large  fire  was  made  up,  and  every  one,  lighting  a  long 
reed,  applied  it  to  some  part  of  the  prisoner's  body.  It 
was  then  that  the  Indians  taxed  their  ingenuity  to  inflict 
the  keenest  torment,  and  he  who  succeeded  in  extract- 
ing from  the  sufferer  a  cry,  or  any  demonstration  of 
pain,  was  rapturously  applauded.  But  this  satisfaction 
was  very  seldom  obtained.  Commonly,  the  patient 
displayed  unbroken  fortitude,  and  the  impassibility  of 
inanimate  matter.  Far  from  weeping  or  begging  for 
mercy,  he  sang  as  if  in  defiance  of  his  enemies,  heaped 
upon  them  every  opprobrious  epithet  that  he  thought 
calculated  to  kindle  their  fury,  and  never  ceased  to  pro 
voke  their  resentment  until  death  stopped  his  voice.  It 
sometimes  happened  that  some  tender-hearted  woman, 
wishing  to  put  an  end  to  his  prolonged  agony,  gave  him 
a  blow  which  cheated  his  tormentors  of  their  prey.  Not 
unfrequently  also,  a  young  widow,  whose  mate  had  died 
in  the  war,  took  him  for  her  husband,  and  thus  saved 
him  from  the  horrible  death  to  which  he  was  destined. 


FORTIFICATIONS  OF  THE  INDIAN'S.  321 

The  Indians  understood  the  art  of  making  fortifica- 
tions sufficiently  strong  to  resist  the  means  of  assault 
which  were  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  Trunks  of 
trees,  of  a  circumference  of  six  feet,  were  driven  five  or 
six  feet  into  the  ground,  leaving  ten  feet  out  with  sharp- 
ened tops.  The  joints  of  these  posts  were  strengthened 
inside  by  the  application  of  other  posts  of  the  diameter 
of  one  foot.  This  wooden  wall  was  protected  outside 
by  towers  erected  at  the  distance  of  forty  steps  from 
one  another.  Its  inside  was  supported  by  an  elevation 
or  bank  of  earth  three  feet  wide  by  three  in  height, 
which  bank  was  lined,  to  keep  the  earth  compact,  with 
green  branches  and  leaves  serried  together  by  strong 
stakes.  They  showed  great  intelligence  in  opening 
loopholes;  and  all  along  their  walls,  about  five  feet 
above  the  parapet  of  earth  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
they  had  a  sort  of  pentice  made  with  branches  and 
splinters  of  wood,  as  a  protection  against  grenades.  In 
the  center  of  the  fort,  they  planted  a  tree,  the  branches 
of  which  had  been  lopped  off  at  about  nine  inches  from 
the  trunk,  so  that  they  might  serve  to  go  up  to  the  top, 
where,  when  necessary,  the  Indians  placed  a  sentinel  to 
watch  the  movements  of  the  enemy.  Round  this  tree, 
or  ladder,  they  constructed  several  cabins,  or  sheds,  as 
an  asylum  for  the  women  and  children  against  falling 
arrows.  Round  the  fort  were  several  fortified  houses, 
which  were  its  outposts  and  dependencies :  they  were 
useful  in  times  of  peace,  as  relieving  the  fort  from  many 
of  its  encumbrances ;  but  when  a  serious  attack  was 
made,  they  were  generally  abandoned  after  a  short  re- 
sistance. If  you  cut  the  wicker  strings  which  bind  the 
hoop  of  a  barrel,  and  if  you  fling  that  hoop  on  the 
ground,  the  figure  which  it  will  form,  when  both  ex- 
tremities of  the  hoop  lie  apart  and  get  loose  from  each 
other,  will  represent  the  fort  and  its  entrance.  This 
v 


322  THE  INDIANS  CAREFUL  OF  THEIR  LIVES. 

entrance  always  fronted  some  stream  or  spring  from 
which  water  was  procured,  and  was  defended  by  a 
truncated  tower.  In  cases  of  extreme  danger,  this  pas- 
sage was  blocked  up  with  every  kind  of  briers  and 
thorny  shrubs. 

When  a  nation  was  so  badly  defeated  that  it  feared 
entire  destruction,  it  applied  to  another  nation,  the 
mediation  of  which  it  invoked,  through  ambassadors 
who  carried  presents.  If  the  victor  rejected  this  media- 
tion, the  conquered  nation  abandoned  its  territory,  and 
incorporated  itself  with  the  nation  for  whose  protection 
it  had  sued. 

I  have  already  said  that  the  Indians,  although  gene- 
rally brave,  were  extremely  economical  of  their  lives. 
In  imitation  of  Diomedes  and  Ulysses  before  the  walls 
of  Troy,  and  of  other  heroes  elsewhere,  they  delighted 
in  murdering  their  enemies  when  asleep,  but  yet,  in  spite 
of  all  their  prudence,  some  of  them  were  killed  occa- 
sionally ;  and  then  they  were  scalped,  when  possible,  by 
their  own  companions,  who  were  anxious  not  to  leave 
in  the  hands  of  their  enemies  such  trophies  and  proofs 
of  victory.  There  was  another  circumstance  which  con- 
tributed to  render  their  wars  less  destructive  than  ours, 
and  which  would  throw  some  embarrassment  in  the  way 
of  our  modern  generals.  Thus,  when  the  party  that 
had  gone  on  a  war  expedition  returned  home  with  the 
loss  of  some  warriors,  the  war-chief  paid  an  indemnity 
to  their  families.  A  very  humane  and  considerate  pro- 
vision for  barbarians  to  think  of,  and  a  powerful  check 
on  the  wanton  sacrifice  of  lives  by  military  leaders. 

The  Indians  were  not  free  from  some  of  those  vices 
which  are  so  prevalent  among  us,  and  which  a  high 
state  of  moral  and  intellectual  cultivation  has  failed  so 
far  to  .eradicate.  For  instance,  gamesters,  although 
held  in  bad  repute,  were  common  among  them;  and 


INDIAN  GAMING  AND  GAMES.  323 

there  was  one  particular  game  which  they  preferred 
above  all  others.  It  could  be  played  by  two  only; 
one  darted  a  long  pole,  in  the  shape  of  a  bishop's 
cross,  and  at  the  same  time,  before  the  pole  fell  to  the 
ground,  hurled  down  on  its  edge,  in  the  same  direction, 
a  heavy  circular  stone  in  the  shape  of  a  wheel,  while 
the  other  player  also  flung  his  pole.  He  whose  pole 
was  nearest  to  the  stone  when  it  stopped  rolling,  won  a 
point,  and  had  the  throwing  of  both  pole  and  stone, 
which  was  a  great  advantage,  as  he  could  measure  their 
velocity  so  as  to  make  them  meet.  As  it  is  with  us, 
the  Indians  generally  began  with  playing  for  trifles,  but 
when  excited,  they  raised  their  stakes,  and  ended  often 
by  losing  all  their  worldly  possessions.  Human  nature 
is  always  the  same  at  bottom,  however  modified  it  may 
be  at  the  surface,  whether  it  remains  in  the  original 
nakedness  of  barbarism,  or  conceals  itself  under  the 
varied  garments  of  civilization. 

The  women  also  had  their  game,  but  it  was  a  very 
innocent  one,  because  they  never  staked  any  thing  for 
fear  of  offending  their  husbands.  They  played  three 
by  three,  with  three  pieces  of  differently  painted  reeds, 
nine  inches  long,  with  one  side  flat  and  the  other  con- 
vex. One  of  the  players  held  the  three  pieces  in  her 
open  palm ;  one  of  the  other  players  struck  them  with 
a  small  rod.  They  fell  to  the  ground,  and  if  two  of 
the  reeds  had  their  convex  sides  up,  it  constituted  the 
winning  of  a  point.  This  certainly  was  a  very  sinless 
way  for  the  Indian  ladies  of  fashion  to  while  away  a 
wearisome  hour. 

The  French,  so  famous  for  their  politeness,  were 
struck  with  the  innate  courtesy  of  the  Indians,  and  have 
expressed  their  admiration  in  pages  which  are  now 
lying  before  us.  If  an  Indian  met  a  Frenchman,  he 
went  up  to  him,  took  and  squeezed  his  hand,  and  with 


324:  NATURAL  POLITENESS  OF  THE  INDIAN. 

a  gentle  inclination  of  the  head,  exclaimed,  "  Is  it  thou, 
my  friend  ?"  and  if  he  had  nothing  to  say  worthy  of 
utterance,  he  passed  on  without  indulging  in  idle  con- 
versation— a  proof  of  infinite  good  sense,  and  a  thing 
well  deserving  of  imitation. 

Should  an  Indian  overtake  a  Frenchman  in  walking, 
lie  never  would  pass  before  him,  and  would  patiently 
follow  behind  at  some  distance.  But  if  in  a  hurry,  he 
would  deviate  from  the  path,  take  a  long  circuit  so  as 
to  keep  out  of  the  stranger's  sight,  and  come  back  to 
his  direct  way  at  a  considerable  distance  ahead. 

On  their  receiving  a  visit,  they  shook  the  visitor's 
hand,  and  after  a  few  words  of  greeting,  they  invited 
him  to  sit  down,  generally  on  a  bed  used  for  this  pur- 
pose. Then  a  profound  silence  was  observed,  until  the 
visitor,  after  a  few  minutes  of  rest,  thought  proper  to 
speak.  After  he  had  spoken,  the  wife  of  the  person 
who  was  visited  brought  what  victuals  she  might  have 
ready,  and  her  husband  said  to  the  visitor,  "  eat?  It 
was  necessary  to  taste  of  every  thing  that  was  pre- 
sented, otherwise  it  would  have  been  looked  upon  as  a 
demonstration  of  contempt  or  fastidiousness. 

However  numerous  the  Indians  might  be  when  they 
met  to  converse,  there  was  but  one  who  spoke  at  a 
time,  and  he  was  never  interrupted.  In  their  public 
councils,  the  greatest  decorum  prevailed,  and  each  one 
in  his  turn,  if  he  chose,  addressed  the  meeting,  which 
was  composed  of  as  good  listeners  as  any  orator  might 
wish  for.  When  a  question  had  been  discussed,  and 
had  to  be  put  to  the  vote,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  was  al- 
lowed for  silent  meditation,  and  then  the  sense  of  the 
assembly  was  taken.  The  impetuous  volubility  of  the 
French  was  to  them  a  matter  of  surprise ;  and  they 
could  not  help  smiling  when  they  saw  the  French  talk 
together  with  such  vehement  gesticulations,  all  of  them 


MANNERS  OF  THE  INDIANS.  325 

speaking  at  the  same  time,  and  none  of  them  listening. 
Le  Page  du  Pratz  relates  with  great  simplicity  of  heart, 
that  he  had  remarked  the  smile  which  flitted  on  the 
lips  of  the  Indians  on  such  occasions,  and  that  for  more 
than  two  years  he  had  inquired  of  the  Indians  for  the 
cause  of  it,  without  obtaining  any  other  answer  than 
this  one — "  What  is  it  to  ihee  ?  It  does  not  concern  thee." 
At  last,  one  of  them  yielding  to  his  solicitations,  said, 
"  My  friend,  do  not  be  angry  then,  if  I  tell  thee  the 
truth,  which  by  thy  importunity  is  forced  out  of  me. 
If  we  smile  when  we  see  the  French  talk  together, 
it  is  because  we  are  exceedingly  amused,  and  because 
they  put  us  in  mind  of  a  cackling  flock  of  frightened 
geese." 

If  the  French  admitted  that  the  Indians  were  as 
polite  as  themselves,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  these 
barbarians  were  also  more  careful  observers  of  the  rules 
of  hygieine  than  their  mercurial  pale-faced  brothers. 
For  instance,  they  never  could  be  persuaded  to  eat  of 
the  skillfully-made  dishes  of  the  French,  because  they 
said  that  they  were  afraid  of  the  ingredients  which  en- 
tered into  their  composition.  They  never  ate  salad  nor 
any  thing  raw  or  uncooked  except  ripe  fruit,  and  they 
never  could  relish  wine.  Unfortunately,  these  men 
who  were  so  remarkable  for  their  enlightened  sobriety 
in  every  thing  else,  could  not  resist  the  fatal  allure- 
ments of  brandy,  known  in  their  language  as  the  fire 
liquor,  and  they  thoroughly  despised  the  French  for 
mixing  it  with  water. 

In  one  respect,  they  were  superior  to  every  nation  of 
antiquity,  or  of  modern  times.  They  ate  only  when  they 
were  hungry,  and  therefore  had  no  fixed  hour  for  their 
meals,  nor  did  they  eat  together,  the  promptings  of  the 
stomach  not  being  the  same  with  all.  The  only  ex- 
ception was,  when  a  feast  was  given :  then  the  men  ate 


326  THE  TEMPLE  OF  THE  NATCHEZ. 

by  messes  or  companies,  all  out  of  the  same  dish,  and 
the  women,  adults,  and  children  stood  apart,  doing  the 
same  among  themselves.  When  the  Indians  were  sick, 
they  refrained  to  the  last  moment  from  calling  a  phy- 
sician to  their  aid,  and  behaving  with  as  much  sense  as 
could  have  possessed  the  seven  wise  men  of  Greece  put 
together,  they  abstained  from  their  ordinary  food,  and 
lived  entirely  on  gruel  water. 

But,  in  some  of  the  preceding  pages,  I  have  been  de- 
scribing manners  common  to  all  the  Indians.  I  return 
to  the  Natchez  in  particular.  The  temple  of  the  vil- 
lage where  their  sovereign  resided,  was  built  near  a 
small  stream,  on  a  mound  eight  feet  high.  This  temple 
was  thirty  feet  square.  The  corner  posts  were  of  one 
foot  and  a  half  diameter,  and  of  one  foot  for  the  other 
posts.  The  space  between  the  posts  was  filled  up  by  a 
mud  wall  nine  inches  thick.  To  secure  the  solidity  of 
the  edifice,  the  posts,  which  were  twenty  feet  long,  were 
driven  ten  feet  into  the  ground,  leaving  therefore  an 
elevation  of  ten  feet  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling.  The 
apsis  of  the  temple  fronted  the  east :  the  inside  was 
divided  into  two  unequal  compartments,  by  a  thin  wall 
running  from  east  to  west.  In  the  largest  room  there 
was  a  table  or  altar,  six  feet  in  length  by  two  in  width, 
and  four  feet  in  height.  It  supported  a  reed-basket,  or 
coffin,  in  which  were  deposited  the  bones  of  the  last 
Great  Sun.  There  also  the  eternal  and  sacred  fire  was 
kept.  In  the  small  room,  there  were  sundry  small  ob- 
jects of  adoration,  the  nature  of  which  the  Indians  never 
would  explain  to  the  European  visitors,  and  which  the 
eye  could  not  ascertain  on  account  of  the  darkness  of 
the  room.  The  roof  of  the  temple  went  tapering  up, 
and  its  apex  was  only  six  feet  long.  There,  sat  three 
wooden  birds,  twice  as  large  as  a  common  goose.  Their 


THEIR  CARE  OF  THE  DEAD.  327 

feathers  were  painted  white,  with  a  sprinkling  of  red. 
These  birds  faced  the  East. 

The  plebeians  were  not  permitted  to  enter  the 
temple.  It  was  accessible  only  to  the  Suns  or  nobles, 
and  to  such  strangers  of  distinction  as  were  permitted 
to  visit  it  with  the  express  consent  of  the  Great  Sun, 
who  was  both  the  Sovereign  and  the  High  Priest  of 
the  nation. 

The  sacred  fire  was  fed  by  the  eight  guardians  of  the 
temple,  with  the  wood  of  the  white  walnut,  stripped  of  its 
bark.  The  logs  were  eight  inches  in  diameter,  by  eight 
feet  in  length.  Death  to  the  guilty  guardian,  or  guard- 
ians, was  the  consequence  of  the  extinguishment  of  the 
fire. 

No  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe  ever  had  more  re- 
spect for  the  dead  than  the  Indians  of  America,  and 
particularly  the  Natchez.  At  their  funerals,  they  gave 
undoubted  signs  of  the  truest  and  most  unbounded  grief 
for  the  departed.  They  did  not,  like  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  practice  the  usage  of  burning  the  dead  bodies, 
so  as  to  keep  their  ashes  in  sculptured  urns,  to  be  pre- 
served under  the  domestic  protection  of  household  gods. 
But  they  temporarily  placed  the  dead  in  coffins  made 
of  reeds,  where  the  necessary  process  of  decomposition 
was  to  be  undergone,  and  on  which  they  continued  for 
some  time  to  deposit  articles  of  food  as  a  tribute  of  love 
and  remembrance,  and  as  a  demonstration  of  their  wil- 
lingness still  to  minister  to  wants,  which  unfortunately 
no  longer  existed.  When  nothing  but  the  dry  bones 
remained,  they  were  transferred  to  wicker  coffers,  which 
were  laid  up  in  small  temples  or  private  chapels.  These 
temples  of  the  dead  were  hardly  distinguishable  from 
the  ordinary  dwellings  of  the  Indians,  except  it  be  by 
the  wooden  imitation  of  a  human  head  hanging  over 
the  door.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  veneration  which 


328   REFLECTION'S  ON"  THE  CARE  TAKEN  OF  THE  DEAD. 

they  entertained  for  the  cherished  relics  of  their  ances- 
try ;  and  more  than  one  Indian  nation,  when  emigrat- 
ing, carried  away  the  parental  bones,  to  which  they 
clung  with  an  intenseness  of  passion,  hardly  to  be  con- 
ceived in  these  our  days  of  worldly  philosophy. 

Who  cares  now  for  the  dead,  except  the  surgeon,  for 
dissecting  purposes,  or  the  sexton,  for  his  fee  ?  Who 
cares  for  the  dead  in  this  utilitarian  age?  To  what 
practical  use  can  they  be  turned,  except  to  make  coat 
buttons,  or  knife  handles,  or  whistles,  with  their  bones  ? 
Who  thinks  of  the  dead,  except  it  be  to  reflect  on  the 
direful  necessity  they  impose  upon  us,  of  having  un- 
healthy grave-yards,  and  to  devise  the  means  of  strip- 
ping these  places  of  solemn  repose  of  their  frigid  aspect, 
and  to  convert  them  into  pleasure-gardens,  where  the 
tombs,  or  what  purports  to  be  such,  are  decked  in  gay 
colors,  pagan  ornaments,  and  a  meretricious  look :  and 
instead  of  teaching  morality  and  religion,  leave  the  mind 
of  the  visitor  free  to  discuss  its  ordinary  pursuits  of 
pleasure  or  of  gain,  and  invite  the  lover's  hand  to 
snatch  the  rose  growing  out  of  his  father's  dust,  to  pre- 
sent it  to  his  lady  love,  who  stands  by,  and  smiles  on 
the  profane  donation.  Fy  !  Who  cares  for  the  dead  ? 
Is  it  he  who  sells  his  ancestral  portraits  at  the  auction- 
eer's shop,  or  inventories  the  very  sheets  of  the  death- 
bed, to  ascertain  their  value,  and  to  secure  the  strict 
distribution  of  every  dime  of  their  worth  among  the 
greedy  claimants  ?  There  is  a  land  where  I  have  de- 
scended into  family  vaults,  in  which  a  solitary  lamp  cast 
a  dubious  light,  making  darkness  visible.  There  lay, 
in  august  repose,  twenty  generations,  side  by  side. 
There,  the  imposing  severity  of  the  marble  monuments, 
and  the  austere-looking  statues  of  the  departed,  sleep- 
ing so  solemnly  on  the  top  of  their  own  tombs. — There, 
the  soul-moving  records  of  the  past,  often  chiseled  by 


DEATH  OF  STUNG  SERPENT.  329 

the  Land  of  genius. — There,  the  time-honored  inscrip- 
tions.— There,  that  peculiar  smell  which  reminds  one 
of  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  antiquity. — There,  every 
thing  impressive,  awfully  monitory,  and  Christian-like ! 
There,  profane  thought  was  put  to  flight,  and  mundane 
mirth  was  chilled  into  reverential  sobriety !  As  I 
came  out  with  a  heart  overflowing  with  emotion,  and 
my  sight  rested  on  the  moss-covered,  swallow-tenanted 
turrets  of  the  family  mansion,  where,  for  centuries,  the 
same  race  of  people  had  dwelt  in  joy  or  in  sorrow,  my 
eyes  became  suffused  with  involuntary  tears,  and  this 
indistinct  and  half-muttered  expression  of  my  feelings 
rose  up  to  my  lips  :  "  Blessed  be  the  land  where  there 
are  such  connecting  links  between  the  dead  and  the 
living !" 

In  1725,  Stung  Serpent,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  when 
relating  the  first  expedition  of  Bienville  against  the 
Natchez,  in  1716,  departed  from  his  beautiful  native 
hills  overhanging  the  bed  of  the  father  of  rivers,  and 
went  on  his  final  pilgrimage  to  the  world  of  spirits. 
The  better  to  illustrate  the  manners,  laws,  and  customs 
of  the  Natchez,  I  shall  recite  what  occurred  on  that 
occasion.  Although  I  shall  confine  myself  to  a  strictly 
historical  narrative,  I  believe  it  will  be  found  not  des- 
titute of  dramatic  and  romantic  interest. 

Stung  Serpent  being  dangerously  ill,  the  chief  of  the 
guardians  of  the  temple  came  to  Fort  Rosalie  to  inform 
the  French  of  this  fact,  and  to  let  them  know  that  the 
Great  Sun,  the  brother  of  Stung  Serpent,  according  to 
a  mutual  promise  not  to  survive  one  another,  had  deter- 
mined to  redeem  his  pledge  to  the  dying  man.  This 
was  a  startling  information,  because  the  death  of  these 
two  chiefs  at  the  same  time,  was  calculated  to  be  a 
heavy  blow  to  the  nation  on  account  of  the  number  of 
victims  that  would  be  sacrificed  in  their  honor.  The 


330  THE  GREAT  SUN  RESOLVES 

commander  of  Fort  Rosalie,  accompanied  by  Le  Page 
du  Pratz  and  others,  hastened  to  the  chief  village,  to  in- 
quire into  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  They  found 
the  Great  Sun  in  his  hut,  and  with  him  they  went  to 
visit  Stung  Serpent.  It  soon  became  evident  to  the 
French,  that  the  sick  prince  had  breathed  his  last. 
But  the  Great  Sun  was  still  in  doubt,  and  when  the 
French  were  preparing  to  retire,  he  stopped  Le  Page 
by  the  arm,  and  said :  "  Ouitigui-ilatagoup-colieyogo" — 
"  is  he  dead  truly  ?  What  dost  thou  say  ?"  Le  Page  an- 
swered, "  Nbco,"  "  I  do  not  know" — in  order  to  prolong 
an  illusion  which  he  did  not  wish  suddenly  to  destroy. 
The  French  accompanied  the  Great  Sun  back  to  his 
dwelling,  into  which  he  invited  them.  As  soon  as  he 
crossed  his  threshold,  he  exclaimed,  "My  brother  is 
dead" — and  he  squatted  down  with  his  head  sunk  on 
his  breast,  and  his  hands  covering  his  eyes.  On  hear- 
ing these  words,  the  Great  Sun's  wife  uttered  fearful 
shrieks,  which  were  echoed  all  round,  and  went  multi- 
plying through  the  village,  every  hut  resounding  with 
wailings  and  lamentations.  Then,  muskets  were  fired 
to  notify  the  neighboring  villages,  which  in  their  turn 
answered  the  firing.  A  short  time  after,  the  Great 
Sun's  word-bearer,  or  chancellor,  came  in  and  wept. 
The  Great  Sun  raised  his  head  and  looked  meaningly 
at  his  wife,  who  threw  water  on  the  hearth  and  extin- 
guished the  fire.  At  this  sight,  the  word-bearer  saluted 
the  Great  Sun  with  a  howl,  and  departed.  As  soon  as 
he  was  out  of  the  hut,  he  uttered  a  frightful  shriek, 
which  was  taken  up  by  all  the  people  of  the  village, 
and  it  went  on  wildly  spreading  from  echo  to  echo, 
through  every  village.  The  shriek  of  the  word-bearer 
had  given  the  Natchez  to  understand  that  the  Great 
Sun  had  ordered  the  fire  of  his  own  hearth  to  be  ex- 
tinguished, and  therefore  that  every  other  fire  was  to 


TO  SAOkiFICE  HIMSELF.  331 

be  put  out :  which  portended  the  approaching  death  of 
the  sovereign.     Hence  this  universal  lamentation. 

Le  Page  du  Pratz,  who,  for  several  years,  had  been 
on  a  footing  of  intimacy  with  the  Stung  Serpent  and 
with  the  Great  Sun,  approached  that  sovereign,  who 
was  still  squatting  on  the  floor,  and  tapping  him  on  the 
shoulder,  said,  "Hast  thou  ceased  to  be  a  man  since 
thy  brother's  death  ?  Thy  people  inform  us  that  thou 
art  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  thy  life,  through  grief, 
and  because  thou  art  too  weak  to  bear  thy  loss  with 
the  heart  of  a  warrior.  Thy  French  friends  can  not 
believe  that  thou  art  such  a  coward.  Tell  them,  there- 
fore, that  thy  people  do  not  understand  thee  rightly. 
Swear  to  us  that  they  are  mistaken,  and  that  thou  shalt 
not  commit  the  vile  suicide  which  they  suspect."  The 
Great  Sun  looked  up  at  Le  Page,  and  answered  calmly : 
— "  Rest  assured  that  I  no  longer  think  of  it.  Farewell, 
then,  and  sleep  in  peace.  The  night  steals  upon  us 
apace."  However,  there  was  something  in  his  eye 
which  contradicted  his  words,  and  the  French,  not  al- 
together trusting  to  his  declaration,  left  at  his  door  a 
soldier  to  watch  his  doings.  They  went  back  to  the 
Stung  Serpent's  dwelling,  and  they  found  his  corpse 
stretched  in  pomp  and  in  full  dress  on  his  bed.  His 
face  was  painted  with  vermilion,  his  feet  were  encased 
in  beautifully  embroidered  moccasons,  and  his  head  was 
encircled  with  the  crown  of  white  and  red  feathers,  as 
a  prince  of  the  royal  blood.  His  weapons  were  sus- 
pended all  round  his  bed,  and  consisted  of  a  double- 
barreled  gun,  a  pistol,  a  bow,  a  quiver  full  of  arrows, 
and  a  tomahawk.  There  were  also  to  be  seen,  osten- 
tatiously displayed,  all  the  calumets  of  peace  which  had 
been  tendered  to  him  during  his  lifetime,  to  sue  for  his 
mercy  or  protection.  At  the  head  of  his  bed,  stood  a 
red  pole  supporting  a  chain  made  of  reeds,  painted  red, 


332  FUNERAL  OBSEQUIES  OF  STUNG  SERPENT. 

and  composed  of  forty-six  rings.  The  rings  meant  the 
number  of  foes  he  had  killed  in  war. 

All  the  people  composing  the  household  of  the  prince, 
stood  round  him  in  the  attitude  of  mourners.  At  cer- 
tain hours,  as  if  he  had  been  alive,  food  was  brought  to 
him :  and  as,  of  course,  it  remained  untasted,  his  body 
servant  would,  every  time,  break  out  into  the  same 
monotonous  lamentation :  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  wilt  thou 
not  accept  of  our  offerings  ?  Dost  thou  no  longer  relish 
thy  favorite  dishes  ?  Hast  thou  any  reason  to  be  dis- 
pleased with  us,  and  dost  thou  reject  our  services  as 
disagreeable  to  thee  ?  Ah !  thou  dost  not  speak  to  us 
as  it  was  thy  wont.  Wherefore,  thou  must  be  dead. 
Well,  then,  all  is  over — our  occupation  is  gone — and 
since  thou  lea  vest  us,  we  will  follow  thee  to  the  land  of 
spirits."  He  concluded  every  time  this  expostulation 
with  the  Indian  death-cry,  which  was  repeated  by  all 
the  people  present,  and  which,  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
outside  of  the  hut,  was  to  be  heard  swelling  up  in  the 
distance,  leaping  from  village  to  village,  and  ending 
with  one  appalling  chorus,  which  congealed  the  blood 
within  the  heart.  There  also  stood  in  the  hut  of  the 
Stung  Serpent,  besides  his  favorite  wife,  a  second  one, 
whom  he  used  to  keep  in  another  village — his  wood- 
bearer — his  physician — his  body-servant — his  pipe-bear- 
er— and  some  old  women.  They  were  all  destined  to 
be  strangulated  at  his  funeral,  to  keep  company  with 
the  dead  in  the  other  world,  whither  he  had  gone. 

A  woman  of  noble  birth,  who  had  carried  on  an 
amour  with  Stung  Serpent,  whom  she  had  not  been 
able  to  marry,  since,  as  it  will  be  recollected,  the  nobles 
could  not  marry  any  one  of  their  class,  put  herself  vol- 
untarily among  the  number  of  those  who  were  to  ac- 
company the  dead  to  the  world  of  spirits.  She  was 
called  by  the  French  "  La  Glorieuse"  or  "  the  proud"  on 


GRIEF  OF  THE  STUNG  SERPENTS  WIFE.  333 

account  of  her  majestic  figure,  of  the  haughty  expression 
of  her  face,  and  because  she  consented  to  hold  inter- 
course with  none  of  the  French  except  those  of  noble 
birth.  She  was  acquainted  with  the  virtues  of  a  great 
many  medicinal  plants,  and  this  female  Esculapius  had 
saved  the  lives  of  many  of  the  sick  among  the  French. 
The  Stung  Serpent's  favorite  wife  seeing  how  sadly  im- 
pressed the  French  were  with  the  spectacle  which  was 
offered  to  them,  addressed  them  in  these  terms  :  "  Chiefs 
and  nobles  of  France,  I  see  how  much  you  regret  my 
husband.  Truly,  his  death  is  of  much  consequence  for 
the  French  as  well  as  for  our  nation,  because  he  carried 
them  all  in  his  heart.  Whenever  the  French  chiefs 
spoke  to  him,  their  words  dwelt  forever  in  his  ears. 
He  trod  the  same  path  with  the  French,  and  he  loved 
them  more  than  his  own  self.  Now,  he  has  ascended 
to  the  world  of  spirits ;  in  two  days  I  shall  be  with  him, 
and  tell  him  that  I  have  seen  your  hearts  grow  heavy 
at  the  sight  of  his  dead  body.  When  I  am  gone, 
Frenchmen,  remember  that  my  children  are  orphans, 
remember  that  you  have  loved  their  father,  and  let 
the  dew  of  your  friendship  fall  plentifully  on  the  chil- 
dren of  him  who  has  always  been  the  friend  of  the 
French."  After  this  speech,  she  resumed  her  seat  with 
dignified  composure. 

The  night  being  far  advanced,  the  French  retired  to 
a  lodge  which  had  been  prepared  for  them,  but  they 
requested  the  servants  of  the  Great  Sun  to  watch  him 
closely,  and  if  they  saw  any  thing  suspicious,  to  give 
them  timely  information.  At  daybreak,  a  breathless 
messenger,  trembling  with  agitation,  rushed  into  the 
apartment  where  the  French  slept,  woke  them  up,  and 
told  them  that  the  Great  Sun  was  attempting  his  life. 
Hastily  dressing  themselves  with  such  of  their  clothes 
as  they  could  put  their  hands  on  in  the  dark,  they  ran 


334:  THE  GREAT  SUN  ATTEMPTS  HIS  LIFE. 

to  the  Great  Sun's  dwelling.  There,  every  thing  was 
in  the  wildest  uproar  and  confusion.  The  presumptive 
heir  to  the  throne  was  struggling  with  the  sovereign, 
and  trying  to  wrest  from  his  hands  the  gun  with  which, 
it  appears,  he  had  shown  the  intention  to  put  an  end  to 
his  life.  A  number  of  nobles  and  men  of  consideration, 
whom  the  excess  of  fear  seemed  to  have  palsied  into  a 
trance,  stood  looking  on  without  daring  to  interfere.  Le 
Page  went  up  to  the  Great  Sun,  laid  his  hand  gently  on 
the  gun,  and  said, "  What !  yesterday  the  noble  sovereign 
of  the  Natchez  swore  to  me,  his  friend,  that  he  would 
not  kill  himself;  that  he  was  a  man,  and  that  I  might 
rely  on  his  word.  To-day,  what  has  become  of  that 
word?  What  has  become  of  that  man?  Art  thou 
both  a  liar  and  a  coward  ?  Speak  !"  At  these  words 
he  dropped  the  gun,  stared  at  Le  Page  with  a  vacant 
look,  then  rubbed  his  eyes  as  if  awaking  from  a  dream ; 
and  as  if  consciousness  had  suddenly  returned,  he  ex- 
tended his  hand  to  him,  covered  his  face  and  wept. 

When  the  nobles  saw  the  success  obtained  by  Le 
Page,  they  advanced  one  after  the  other  to  shake  him 
by  the  hand,  but  without  uttering  one  word.  The 
silence  became  so  deep  that,  although  the  room  was 
crowded  to  suffocation,  the  light  buzzing  of  a  fly 
would  have  been  heard. 

Looking  round,  Le  Page  saw  that  the  wife  of  the 
Great  Sun  still  continued  to  be  in  a  state  of  great  per- 
turbation. He  approached  her  and  inquired  if  she  was 
sick.  She  answered,  "  yes  /"  and  then  sinking  her  voice 
into  a  whisper,  she  said :  "  Stay  awhile  with  us.  If 
not,  my  husband  dies,  and  then  woe  to  the  Natchez. 
Remain  by  his  side,  for  it  is  to  thy  voice  alone  that  he 
listens.  Thy  voice  is  weighty,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
is  as  pointed  as  an  arrow.  Who  would  have  dared  to 
speak  to  him  as  thou  didst?  Who  would  have  sue- 


THE  GREAT  SUN  PREVAILED  UPON  TO  LIVE.  335 

ceeded  half  so  well  ?  But  he  knows  thee  to  have  been 
the  true  friend  of  his  brother,  and  to  be  now  his  own 
best  friend.  We  all  respect  thee,  for  thou  art  not 
eternally  laughing,  as  the  French  always  do.  When 
thou  spokest  to  the  Great  Sun,  didst  thou  observe  how 
all  eyes  feasted  on  thee,  and  how  all  ears  drank  thy 
words  ?  Yes ;  thy  words  have  all  been  garnered  up  in 
our  hearts." 

In  compliance  with  this  touching  appeal,  Le  Page 
du  Pratz  moved  silently  to  the  side  of  the  Great  Sun, 
who  extended  his  hand  to  him,  and  said  in  a  loud  voice 
so  as  to  be  heard  by  the  whole  assembly,  "  My  friend, 
there  is  so  much  grief  in  my  heart  that  my  eyes,  al- 
though open,  have  not  seen  that  the  French  were  stand- 
ing up.  My  mouth  has  forgotten  to  invite  them  to  sit 
down.  What  will  they  think  of  this  churlish  want  of 
courtesy  ?  I  pray  thee  to  excuse  me  with  them,  and  to 
tell  them  to  take  seats." 

Le  Page  answered  that  no  apology  was  necessary ; 
that  the  French  were  well  acquainted  with  his  good 
breeding,  and  would  leave  him  for  the  present  to 
enjoy  the  rest  of  which  it  was  evident  that  he  stood 
in  need.  "But,"  added  he,  "I  shall  cease  to  be  thy 
friend,  if  thou  dost  not  order  fire  to  be  lighted  on  thy 
hearth,  and  if  thou  dost  not  command  the  same  to  be 
done  in  the  dwelling  of  every  one  of  thy  people.  If 
thou  compliest  with  my  request,  I  shall  stay  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  funeral  of  thy  brother ;  and  when  it  is  over, 
I  must  insist  on  thy  coming  to  my  house  t<5  break  the 
fast  of  grief  and  eat  the  meal  of  consolation."  The 
Great  Sun  pressed  the  hand  of  Le  Page  in  silent  ac- 
quiescence, and  drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height, 
looked  round  with  inexpressible  majesty,  and  said : 
"  Since  the  chiefs  and  nobles  of  France  love  me  and 
wish  me  to  live,  be  it  so ;  my  life  is  safe  in  my  own 


336  REHEARSAL  OF  THE 

keeping ;  let  all  the  fires  be  relighted.  I  will  wait  un- 
til natural  death  reunites  me  to  my  brother.  I  am  old 
and  can  not  tarry  long.  In  the  mean  time,  I  will  walk 
in  the  path  of  the  French.  Had  it  not  been  for  them, 
I  should  have  been  now  with  my  brother,  and  to  do 
me  honor,  the  hills  of  the  Natchez  would  have  been 
strewed  with  the  dead.'1 

Emboldened  by  their  success,  the  French  strongly  re- 
monstrated against  the  absurd,  inhuman,  and  fatal  cus- 
tom so  long  observed  by  the  Natchez,  to  sacrifice  so 
many  lives  on  the  death  of  one  of  their  chiefs.  But  all 
that  they  obtained  was,  that  the  number  of  victims 
should  be  restricted  to  the  two  wives  of  the  dead  chief, 
to  his  physician,  his  word-bearer,  his  body-servant,  his 
pipe-bearer,  and  some  old  women.  "All  the  people 
composing  my  brother's  household  must  die,"  said  the 
Great  Sun,  "because  they  are  his  meat  and  victuals. 
It  can  not  be  otherwise."  On  that  day,  an  old  woman 
who  was  called  the  wicked,  and  who  had  committed 
some  crime  or  other,  was  put  to  death,  and  a  plebeian 
child  was  strangled  by  its  own  father  and  mother. 
Strange  to  say,  this  horrible  crime  raised  the  murder- 
ers above  the  class  of  the  stinking,  to  which  they  be- 
longed, and  transformed  them  into  nobles.  On  that 
day  also  there  was  twice,  in  the  morning  and  in  the 
evening,  a  minute  rehearsal  of  the  tragedy  which  was 
to  be  acted  on  the  day  of  the  funeral.  Thus,  the  grand 
master  came  out  in  full  official  costume  from  the  hut  of 
Stung  Serpent,  accompanied  by  the  two  widows,  the 
word-bearer,  the  pipe-bearer,  the  physician,  the  body- 
servant,  and  the  old  women  who  were  destined  to  die. 
They  moved  in  solemn  procession,  each  of  the  victims 
being  attended  by  eight  of  his  nearest  kinsmen  or  rela- 
tions, whose  duty  it  was  to  put  them  to  death.  One 
carried  an  uplifted  tomahawk,  with  which  he  now  and 


FUNERAL  SERVICE.  337 

then  threatened  to  strike  the  victim ; — another  one,  the 
mat  on  which  the  doomed  was  to  sit  down ; — a  third, 
the  rope  for  strangling ; — the  fourth,  carried  the  deer 
skin  which  was  to  be  thrown  over  the  head  and  shoul- 
ders of  the  victim ; — the  fifth,  a  wooden  bowl  with  five 
or  six  large  pills  of  tobacco,  which  were  administered 
to  the  patient  before  undergoing  strangulation; — the 
sixth,  a  small  earthen  bottle  containing  a  pint  of  water, 
which  the  victim  was  allowed  to  drink  to  facilitate  the 
passage  of  the  pills.  The  two  other  persons  who  fol- 
lowed, were  destined  to  put  themselves  on  the  right 
and  left  of  the  poor  suffering  wretch,  in  order  to  draw 
the  rope  tight,  and  to  make  the  operation  as  quickly 
effective  as  possible. 

The  eight  persons  who  attended  in  this  way  every 
one  of  the  victims,  became  nobles ;  and  therefore  to  be 
one  of  them  was  an  advantage  which  was  much  coveted. 
These  executioners  and  future  nobles  walked  two  by 
two  in  the  rear  of  the  victims,  whose  hair  was  painted 
red,  and  who  held  in  the  right  hand  the  shell  of  a  river 
muscle,  usually  measuring  seven  inches  in  length  by 
three  or  four  in  breadth.  As  to  the  executioners,  they 
wore  red  feathers  tied  to  the  long  tuft  of  plaited  hair 
which  hung  down  on  their  left  shoulder,  and  their 
hands  were  painted  red.  On  reaching  the  public 
square  where  the  temple  stood,  the  persons  who  were 
to  die,  and  their  executioners,  shouted  together  the 
death-cry ; — every  victim  put  himself  on  his  mat  and 
executed  on  it  the  death  dance,  while  the  executioners 
did  the  same  round  them.  It  was  the  most  appalling 
spectacle  that  the  imagination  could  conceive.  After 
each  rehearsal,  the  procession  returned  in  the  same 
order  to  the  hut  of  the  deceased. 

On  that  day,  a  half  serious,  half  ludicrous  accident 
took  place.  An  Indian,  named  Ette-Actal,  was  led  to 
w 


338  ETTE-ACTAL. 

the  Great  Sun,  under  the  escort  of  thirty  men.  This 
Indian  had  married  a  female  Sun,  and  on  her  death,  his 
fate  was  to  be  sacrificed,  according  to  the  good  old  cus- 
tom of  his  nation.  But  Ette-Actal's  mind  happened  to  be 
in  advance  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  he  thought 
that  to  run  away  and  to  save  his  life,  was  a  philo- 
sophical innovation  to  which  it  might  be  profitable  to 
call  the  attention  of  the  Natchez,  and  of  which,  at  any 
rate,  he  ought  to  make  the  experiment.  Putting  into 
action  his  ideas  of  reform,  he  took  to  his  canoe  and  pad- 
dled lustily  down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans,  where 
he  placed  himself  under  the  protection  of  Bienville 
of  whom  he  became  the  voluntary  slave.  But  the  love 
of  country  was  strong  in  him,  and  now  and  then,  he  ob- 
tained permission  to  visit  his  friends  and  relations  among 
the  Natchez,  after  he  felt  assured  that  from  the  lapse  of 
time  since  the  funeral  of  his  wife,  and  on  account  of  the 
situation  he  occupied  in  relation  to  Bienville,  the  gov- 
ernor of  Louisiana,  he  had  no  longer  any  thing  to  fear 
from  his  countrymen.  But  now  that  Bienville  had 
been  recalled  to  France,  and  that  the  presence  of  Ette- 
Actal  in  the  village  of  the  Natchez  had  reminded  them 
of  the  old  debt  he  had  omitted  to  pay,  they  had  ar- 
rested him  with  the  intention  of  putting  him  to  death 
at  the  funeral  of  the  Stung  Serpent. 

When  this  Indian  found  himself  a  prisoner  in  the  hut 
of  the  deceased,  without  any  hope  of  escape,  he  began 
to  give  the  most  unequivocal  signs  of  despair.  At  this 
eight,  the  favorite  wife  of  Stung  Serpent  strode  up 
haughtily  to  him,  and  said :  "  Art  thou  not  a  warrior  ?" 
"  Yes,"  answered  he,  with  a  fresh  gush  of  tears.  "  And 
yet  thou  weepest,"  continued  she.  "  Is  life  so  dear  to 
thee  ?  If  it  be  so,  it  is  not  meet  that  thou  shouldst 
come  with  us.  Hence — begone — go,  thou  coward,  and 
live  among  women."  "  Certainly,"  exclaimed  Ette-Ac- 


HIS  PUSILLANIMITY.  339 

tal,  "  life  is  dear  to  me,  and  I  wish  to  keep  it  for  my 
own  uses  and  purposes,  and  I  should  be  happy  to  live 
among  women,  as  thou  sayest,  in  the  hope  of  leaving  a 
large  posterity  of  children."  Greatly  incensed  at  this 
cynical  retort,  the  princess  repeated  with  increased  ve- 
hemence: "Hence,  cowardly  dog!  It  is  not  decent 
that  thou  shouldst  pollute  us  with  thy  company  in  our 
way  to  the  world  of  spirits.  Thy  soul  belongs  to  the 
earth,  and  there  let  it  rot  with  thy  body.  Hence — let 
me  not  see  thee  again  !"  Never  was  order  obeyed  with 
more  alacrity,  and  Ette-Actal  vanished  with  the  rapid- 
ity of  lightning.  But  on  that  day,  three  decrepid  old 
women,  who  were  related  to  him  by  blood,  and  whose 
infirmities  had  disgusted  them  with  life,  offered  to  die 
in  his  place,  and  that  substitution  was  accepted.  This 
voluntary  sacrifice  of  these  three  kinswomen  of  Ette- 
Actal's,  not  only  secured  to  him  his  life  for  the  future, 
but  from  a  plebeian,  or  stinking,  that  he  was,  raised 
him  to  be  a  man  of  consideration.  Thus,  being  borne 
onward  by  the  tide  of  fortune,  says  Le  Page  du  Pratz, 
Ette-Actal  became  insolent,  like  an  upstart  that  he  was, 
and  availing  himself  of  the  instructions  he  had  received 
among  the  French,  he  went  on  cheating  his  country- 
men without  stint,  and  showed  himself  a  most  accom- 
plished rogue. 

On  the  day  of  the  funeral,  the  French  proceeded  to 
the  dwelling  of  the  Great  Sun,  to  pay  him  a  ceremonial 
visit ;  and  Stung  Serpent's  favorite  wife,  knowing  that 
they  were  there,  came  to  bid  them  a  last  adieu.  She 
had  brought  her  children  with  her,  and  she  addressed 
them  in  these  words  in  the  presence  of  the  French : — 
"  The  death  of  your  father  is  a  severe  loss.  He  tarries 
for  me  to  accompany  him  to  the  world  of  spirits,  and  I 
must  not  keep  him  waiting  long.  I  am  anxious  to  de- 
part, because  since  my  husband's  death,  I  walk  on  this 


34:0        FAREWELL  ADDRESS  OF  STUNG  SERPENT'S  WIFE. 

earth  with  a  heavy  step.  With  regard  to  you,  my  chil- 
dren, you  are  very  young,  and  you  have  before  you  a 
long  path,  through  which  you  must  journey  with  pru- 
dence in  your  minds,  and  boldness  in  your  hearts,  taking 
care  not  to  tear  your  feet  with  the  brambles  of  du- 
plicity, and  the  sharp-edged  flints  of  dishonesty.  I 
leave  to  you  the  keys,  bright  as  you  see,  and  free  from 
rust,  of  the  inheritance  of  your  father,  and  of  my  own 
worldly  possessions.  Take  them:  you  will  find  our 
coffers  full  of  corn.  Never  speak  with  an  evil  tongue 
of  the  French :  walk  in  their  path  without  deceit,  as 
your  father  and  myself  have  done:  treat  them,  and 
love  them  as  we  have.  Be  true  to  them,  and  they  will 
supply  your  wants : — if  they  do  not,  abstain  from  com- 
plaint, and  wait  until  justice  opens  their  hearts  to  your 
merits.  They  were  the  friends  of  your  father ;  there- 
fore, if  they  wrong  you,  let  forgiveness  tread  on  the 
heels  of  the  offense.  And  you,  French  chiefs,  continue 
to  befriend  the  Natchez :  be  liberal  and  kind  to  them : 
do  not  be  too  harsh,  and  too  exacting  in  your  barters 
and  exchanges  with  your  red  brothers,  and  look  with 
the  eye  of  the  dove  on  the  errors  which  they  may  com- 
mit." Perceiving  that  one  of  the  French  was  so  moved, 
that  tears  came  into  his  eyes,  she  said, — "  Do  not  weep : 
— it  is  womanly — although  you  may  well  regret  the 
loss  of  such  friends  as  my  husband  and  myself.  Instead 
of  weeping,  let  us  feast  together.  So  far,  I  have  never 
tasted  meat  with  the  French,  because  it  would  not  have 
been  becoming  in  a  woman:  but  I  amrat  liberty  to  do 
so,  now  that  I  am  going  to  the  world  of  spirits."  And 
turning  to  her  attendants :  "  Let  victuals  be  brought 
plentifully,"  she  said,  "Stung  Serpent's  wife  and  the 
French  chiefs  must  eat  together,  before  parting  for- 
ever." The  French  were  struck  with  admiration  at 
the  surprising  firmness,  the  extraordinary  elevation  of 


THE  FUNERAL  OF  STUNG  SERPENT.  341 

sentiments,  the  queen-like  dignity  of  manner  displayed 
by  this  woman,  and  they  wondered  at  the  infinite  tact 
and  skill  with  which  she  was  contriving  to  secure  for 
her  children  their  protection  and  friendship. 

The  temple,  the  hut  of  the  Stung  Serpent,  and  that 
of  the  Great  Sun,  were  situated  in  front  of  a  public 
square,  which  was  in  the  center  of  the  village.  On  the 
day  of  the  funeral,  the  French  took  their  stand  on  the 
artificial  mound  on  which  the  hut  of  the  Great  Sun  was 
built;  and  from  that  elevated  position  they  had  a  full 
view  of  all  the  ceremonies.  The  Great  Sun  did  not 
make  his  appearance,  and  remained  wrapped  up  in  the 
privacy  of  grief.  At  the  hour  appointed  for  the  ob- 
sequies, the  master  of  the  ceremonies,  with  a  semi- 
crown  of  red  feathers  on  his  brows,  presented  himself 
at  the  door  of  the  Great  Sun.  He  held  in  his  right 
hand  a  red  pole  in  the  shape  of  a  bishop's  cross,  from  the 
head  of  which  hung  down  a  garland  of  black  feathers. 
The  upper  part  of  his  body  was  painted  red,  with  the 
exception  of  his  arms ;  which  signified  that  his  hands 
were  never  dipped  in  blood.  He  wore  from  his  waist 
to  his  knees,  a  sort  of  half  tunic,  which  was  ornamented 
with  alternate  rows  of  white  and  red  feathers.  After 
having  taken  the  commands  of  the  Great  Sun  for  the 
ceremony,  the  grand  master  went  to  the  dwelling  of 
Stung  Serpent,  which  he  saluted  with  a  howl,  in  token 
of  respect,  and  he  then  shouted  the  death-cry,  which 
was  echoed  back  by  the  whole  village.  The  corpse  of 
Stung  Serpent,  carried  on  a  litter  by  eight  men,  of 
whom  six  were  the  guardians  of  the  temple,  came  out 
in  state.  The  grand  master  of  ceremonies  took  the 
lead,  followed  by  the  oldest  warrior  of  the  nation,  who 
carried  on  a  pole  the  chain  of  reeds  which  recorded  the 
number  of  men  killed  in  battle  by  Stung  Serpent.  In 
the  other  hand,  he  held  a  calumet  of '  war,  as  a  sign  of 


342       CLOSING  SCENE INTERMENT  OF  STUNG  SERPENT. 

the  princely  dignity  of  the  deceased.  Then  came  the 
body : — after  which,  the  victims.  The  whole  train  went 
three  times  round  the  dwelling  of  Stung  Serpent,  and 
then  proceeded  direct  toward  the  temple,  describing  a 
series  of  small  intersecting  circles,  so  that  if  their  steps 
had  been  imprinted  on  the  ground,  they  would  have 
formed  to  the  eye  something  like  a  chain  of  rings,  ex- 
tending from  the  dwelling  of  Stung  Serpent  to  the  tem- 
ple. Every  time  the  carriers  of  Stung  Serpent  had  com- 
pleted one  ring,  and  were  entering  into  another,  the 
man  whom  I  have  mentioned  as  having  strangled  his 
child,  threw  down  its  corpse,  so  that  the  dead  body  of 
Stung  Serpent  should  pass  over  it,  and  picking  it  up 
again  by  one  foot,  he  continued  the  same  operation  un- 
til the  funeral  train  reached  the  temple.  By  this 
hellish  deed  the  unnatural  father  became  a  member  of 
the  nobility. 

When  the  procession  arrived  at  the  temple,  the 
tragedy  which  had  been  rehearsed  twice  on  the  pre- 
ceding day,  was  acted  in  earnest,  and  the  victims  were 
put  to  death  according  to  the  programme.  The  body 
of  Stung  Serpent  was  deposited  inside  of  the  temple  on 
the  right,  and  his  two  wives  slept  in  the  same  tomb. 
La  Glorieuse,  or  the  proud,  was  buried  outside  of  the 
temple,  to  the  right,  and  the  word-bearer  to  the  left. 
The  other  bodies  were  transported  to  the  villages  to 
which  they  respectively  belonged.  To  conclude  the 
ceremony  according  to  the  ancient  rites  of  the  tribe,  fire 
was  set  to  the  dwelling  of  Stung  Serpent,  and  it  was 
burnt  to  the  ground. 

The  French  wended  their  way  back  to  Fort  Rosalie, 
reflecting  and  commenting  on  the  strange  scenes  to 
which  they  had  stood  witnesses.  One  of  them,  Philippe 
de  Chamilly,  a  beardless  officer,  celebrated  for  the 
recklessness  of  his  disposition,  the  sprightliness  of  his 


REFLECTIONS  OF  PHILIPPE  DE  CHAMILLY  343 

conversation,  the  exuberance  of  his  animal  spirits,  but 
who,  under  apparent  thoughtlessness  and  the  utmost 
carelessness  of  deportment,  concealed  steadiness  of  pur- 
pose, well-digested  plans  of  ambition,  and  the  keen- 
sighted,  far-seeing  sagacity  of  a  shrewd  and  strong  mind, 
had  remained  moody  and  silent.  It  was  so  foreign  to 
his  habits,  that  it  struck  his  companions,  who  rallied 
him  on  his  extraordinary  taciturnity,  and  asked  him 
whether  he  had  been  crossed  by  the  apparition  of  Stung 
Serpent's  ghost.  "No,"  said  he,  "gentlemen;  it  would 
not  have  produced  such  a  painful  impression  upon  me 
as  the  daily  demonstration  of  a  fact  which  puzzles  my 
philosophy.  How  is  it  that  man  never  obeys  the  im- 
pulses of  his  heart  without  doing  something  which  his 
reason  reprobates,  as  calculated  to  interfere  with  his 
welfare,  his  safety,  and  prosperity  ?  Although  my  as- 
sertion is  not  conducive  to  morality,  and  although  I 
confess  that  it  sounds  like  a  libel  on  the  divine  good- 
ness, yet,  as  I  do  not  stand  here  in  the  pulpit  of  the- 
ology, or  do  not  speak  from  the  mountain  as  a  lawgiver, 
I  do  affirm,  much  to  my  regret,  that  according  to  my 
short  experience,  a  man  who  begins  his  career  has  to 
choose  between  these  two  guides — the  heart  and  the 
head.  They  never  agree;  and  one  leads  to  ruin  as 
surely  as  the  other  to  success  in  this  world,  however 
different  it  may  be  after  death.  For  instance,  when 
we  interfered  to  prevent  that  mahogany-looking  block- 
head of  a  barbarian,  the  Great  Sun,  from  butchering 
half  of  his  people  in  honor  of  his  dead  brother,  and 
persuaded  him  not  to  commit  suicide,  which  would  have 
been  also  a  death-warrant  for  a  good  many  of  his  sub- 
jects, we  acted  according  to  the  dictates  of  our  hearts. 
We  have  been  sentimental  and  romantic,  to  be  sure, 
but  have  we  behaved  with  common  sense  ?  We  lay 
our  hands  on  our  hearts,  and  we  say  with  self-cornpla- 


344  REFLECTIONS  OF  PHILIPPE  DE  CHAMILLT. 

cency — what  generous,  noble,  humane  fellows  we  are ! 
But  what  says  reason,  that  sound  little  politician  we 
have  in  the  head  ?  It  cries  out  to  us,  ye  are  fools ! 
and  is  it  not  true  ?  Is  it  not  our  interest  to  destroy,  or 
to  weaken  as  much  as  we  can,  those  untamable  wild 
beasts,  who  have  to  this  day  so  materially  interfered 
with  our  purposes  of  colonization,  and  who  may  one 
day  lap  our  blood  like  tigers,  if  they  ever  have  a  favor- 
able opportunity  ?  Which  of  us  is  simple  enough  to 
believe  that  those  Indians  do  not  see,  with  secret  but 
deadly  hostility,  our  gradual  encroachments  on  their 
lands  ?  Do  you  think  that  they  do  not  feel  that  their 
existence  and  ours  can  not  continue  long  side  by  side, 
and  that  one  must,  sooner  or  later,  make  way  for  the 
other.  If  this  be  the  decree  of  fate,  why  not  facilitate 
its  execution,  and  thereby  avert  the  dangers  and  blood- 
shed which  may  be  the  result  of  our  maudlin  generosity 
or  bastard  humanity,  so  suicidal  for  us,  and  so  fruitless 
for  those  it  was  intended  to  benefit.  What  course  then 
had  we  to  pursue  on  this  occasion?  Why — a  plain 
one — it  was,  in  order  to  diminish  the  number  of  our 
enemies,  to  encourage  those  stupid  savages  in  their  ne- 
farious practices,  to  stimulate  their  pride,  and  to  show 
great  admiration  at  the  magnanimous  courage  with 
which  they  are  ever  ready  to  sacrifice  themselves  on 
the  tombs  of  their  chiefs.  We  ought  to  have  assisted 
in  tying  the  ropes  round  the  necks  of  half  of  those  red 
devils,  and  in  making  the  other  half  pull  the  murderous 
strings,  while  we  should  have  stood  by  enjoying  the 
joke  and  cracking  our  sides  with  laughter.  Such  would 
have  been  the  policy  of  Louis  the  Xlth,  a  pretty  wise 
statesman  of  ours,  who  said,  that  '  the  smell  emanating 
from  the  corpse  of  a  foe  was  the  sweetest  of  perfumes.' 
O,  shame !  This  would  have  been  cruel  and  barbarous ! 
I  do  not  deny  it.  But,  finally,  to  achieve  the  destruc- 


MEDICAL  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE  NATCHEZ.  345 

tion  of  those  people  must  be  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  position  you  have  assumed  toward  them.  A  man, 
if  he  be  not  a  fool,  must  be  a  logician  in  virtue,  or  in 
crime.  If  he  makes  up  his  mind  to  rob  and  to  oppress, 
he  ought,  in  self-defense,  to  take  away  life  from  the 
oppressed,  when  he  can  turn  his  victim  to  no  better  use. 
Mark  the  words  of  him  whom  you  take  for  a  thought- 
less, inexperienced  stripling.  As  we  have  acted  with 
Christian  charity,  and  obeyed  the  Tieart,  we  may  be  re- 
warded for  it  in  the  kingdom  of  bliss  above ;  but  as  we 
have  disregarded  the  head,  and  been  politically  foolish, 
we  shall  be  punished  and  suffer  for  it  on  this  side  of 
the  grave.  So  the  conclusions  of  my  speech  keep  tune 
with  its  premises.  But  a  truce  to  my  gravity — Fort 
Rosalie  is  in  sight.  Supper,  thank  God,  a  French  sup- 
per— not  an  Indian  one,  must  be  ready.  I  cheerfully 
drop  the  soothsayer  to  be  no  more  than  a  boon  com- 
panion over  a  merry  cup."  Four  years  had  hardly 
elapsed,  before  the  prediction  was  accomplished.  The 
white  flag  was  pulled  down  from  Fort  Rosalie  by  the 
hand  of  an  Indian  warrior,  and  the  whole  French  col- 
ony at  Natchez  was  visited  with  complete  destruction. 

The  advanced  state  of  the  medical  art,  which  is  pre- 
sumed always  to  keep  pace  with  the  other  arts  and 
sciences,  may  therefore  be  received  as  a  criterion  of  the 
degree  of  civilization  to  which  nations  have  arrived.  If 
we  judged  of  the  Natchez  by  that  test,  we  might  be 
tempted  to  believe  and  to  say,  without  much  sarcastic 
exaggeration,  that  the  French  could  hardly  claim  any 
superiority  in  that  respect  over,  those  barbarians.  For 
many  diseases  to  which  the  Natchez  were  subject, 
their  physicians  were  quite  as  skillful  as  the  French, 
if  not  more  so.  If  they  were  powerless  against  the 
small-pox,  by  which  they  were  threatened  to  be  annihi- 
lated, and  which  was  a  recent  European  importation 


34:6  MEDICAL  EEMEDIES 

against  which,  until  lately,  they  had  never  felt  the  ne- 
cessity of  guarding  themselves,  they  did  not,  it  may  be 
justly  observed,  show  themselves  more  ignorant  than 
our  modern  physicians,  who,  in  spite  of  their  profound 
studies,  and  of  the  written  information  which  comes  to 
them  from  every  part  of  the  world,  and  from  the  ex- 
perience of  so  many  centuries,  are  invariably  bewildered 
and  miserably  impotent,  whenever  humanity  is  attacked 
by  one  of  those  unknown  diseases  which,  from  time  to 
time,  are  so  suddenly  and  so  mysteriously  generated. 
The  Natchez  understood  the  art  of  blood-letting  and 
scarifying  in  many  ways,  not  omitting  the  application 
of  the  moxa,  just  as  well  as  any  Esculapius  of  the 
present  day,  although  not  exactly  by  the  same  pro- 
cess. The  system  of  hydropathy  was  not  unknown, 
and  cold  bathing  and  vapor-baths  were  much  in  prac- 
tice. In  provoking  perspiration,  in  using  frictions,  in 
administering  drastics,  and  in  applying  other  devices  of 
the  healing  art,  they  were  not  so  inferior  to  our  race 
as  might  at  first  be  thought  by  those  learned  men  who 
hold  their  diplomas  from  the  medical  faculties  of  Lon- 
don and  Paris. 

It  may  not  be  without  interest  to  enumerate  here  a 
few  of  their  remedies.  Thus,  in  cases  of  diarrhea  and 
dysentery,  they  used  with  much  effect  a  kind  of  bread 
made  with  the  pounded  fruit  of  the  persimmon-tree, 
which  they  dried  up  either  in  an  oven  or  by  exposure 
to  the  sun.  They  had  discovered  the  balsam  of  the  co- 
pal-tree to  be  an  excellent  febrifuge.  First  purging 
the  patient,  they  administered  to  him  ten  or  twelve 
drops  of  this  balsam  several  times  a  day,  and  an  hour 
or  two  before  the  patient  had  eaten  any  thing.  If  they 
were  troubled  with  ulcers,  wounds,  sores,  <fcc.,  they  ap- 
plied for  several  days  on  the  diseased  parts  a  poultice 
of  the  ground  ivy,  well  pounded,  and  afterward  they 


OF  THE  NATCHEZ.  347 

washed  arid  dressed  those  wounds,  ulcers,  &c.  with  the 
balsam  of  copal,  which  was  also  very  powerful  in  the 
affections  of  the  chest  and  bowels,  in  cases  of  obstruc- 
tions, of  relaxations,  <fcc,  &c.  In  fact,  it  was  for  the 
Indians  a  universal  panacea,  and  like  good  wine,'  it  is 
said  to  have  gladdened  the  heart.  Another  febrifuge 
of  great  virtue  and  as  efficacious  as  quinine,  was  the  red 
grain  of  the  magnolia.  The  grain  of  the  wax-tree 
boiled  in  water  gave  an  astringent  beverage  which  pro- 
duced all  the  good  effects  of  ipecacuanha.  For  ordi- 
nary cuts  or  gashes,  the  root  of  the  cotton-tree  afforded 
them  a  precious  remedy.  If  they  suffered  from  the 
stomach,  they  took,  as  tea,  an  infusion  of  the  leaves  of 
the  cassia  berry-tree.  If  they  had  the  tooth-ache,  they 
chewed  a  piece  of  "  bois  d?  amourette?  or  of  the  acacia, 
and  the  pain  was  gone ;  so  that  dentists  would  have 
starved  among  them.  With  the  leaves  of  the  elder  and 
with  hog's  lard  they  relieved  their  pains,  when  proceed- 
ing from  piles ;  and  no  ague  could  resist  one  or  two 
purgatives,  followed  by  a  strong  decoction  of  the  Inane 
barbue,  or  bearded  withwind. 

When  the  Natchez  wished  to  perspire,  so  as  to  cure 
a  cold,  or  to  re-establish  the  functions  of  the  skin,  they 
drank  hot  infusions  of  the  China  radix.  It  is  said  that 
an  infusion  of  the  root  of  the  same  plant  was  also  used 
by  them  as  a  specific  to  prevent  the  hair  from  falling, 
or  to  make  it  grow  again  with  more  profusion  than  ever. 
I  here  mention  the  fact  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are 
threatened  with  baldness.  The  leaves  of  the  China 
radix  were  likewise  employed  in  the  curing  of  wounds. 

The  Natchez  were  acquainted  with  the  medicinal 
qualities  of  sassafras,  sarsaparilla,  and  maiden-hair. 
But  their  most  powerful  sudorific  was  the  plant  called 
by  the  French  plat  d$  bois. 

They  possessed  an  antidote  against  the  bite  of  the 


348  THEIR  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MEDICAL  PLANTS. 

rattlesnake.  It  consisted  in  chewing  the  onion  or  root 
of  a  plant  which  the  Indians  called  oudla-coudlo-gouille, 
and  the  French  Vherbe  a  serpent  a,  sonmttes,  or  rattle- 
snake plant,  which  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  In- 
dian appellation.  After  having  chewed  the  onion,  they 
applied  the  residue  to  the  wound.  The  poison  was 
promptly  checked,  and  the  patient  recovered  entirely 
in  four  or  five  hours.  An  application  to  the  forehead 
of  the  pounded  green  leaves  of  the  ground  ivy  cured 
every  headache.  The  old  colonists  used  to  extract  from 
it  a  salt,  which  they  put  in  arquebusade  water,  and  it 
was  thought  to  be  an  infallible  remedy  for  the  megrim. 
Those  Indians  astonished  the  French  by  their  rapid 
cures  of  the  most  dreadful  wounds  produced  by  fire- 
arms. One  of  their  curative  ingredients  was  the  plant 
known  to  this  day  in  Louisiana  as  the  Choctaw  root. 
They  possessed  the  most  invaluable  secrets  to  cure  the 
dropsy,  the  sciatica,  and  the  fistula  lachrymalis.  I 
could  name  many  other  diseases  which,  if  what  is  re- 
ported is  to  be  taken  as  true,  they  could  master  better 
than  if  they  had  studied  old  Hippocrates.  This  sketch 
is  sufficient,  however,  to  show  what  proficiency  those 
Indians  had  attained  in  the  healing  art,  the  most  im* 
portant  of  all  to  mankind.  It  certainly  speaks  much 
in  favor  of  their  powers  of  observation,  of  investigation- 
and  of  discrimination:  that  they  should  have  arrived  at 
discovering  more  than  three  hundred  medical  plants, 
of  which  the  king's  commissary,  De  la  Chaise,  sent  a 
collection  to  France  with  a  memoir  written  on  the  sub- 
ject by  Le  Page  du  Pratz.  The  physicians  ranked  very 
high  among  the  Natchez,  and  were  looked  upon  as  in- 
spired. Those  people  believed,  that  for  every  disease 
the  Great  Spirit  had  provided  a  remedy  in  the  shape 
of  a  plant,  and  that  he  never  refused  to  point  it  out 
to  the  physician,  when  supplicated  in  the  proper  man- 


TRADITIONAL  CAUSE  OF  THEIR  DECLINE.  319 

ner.  Hence,  if  they  awarded  the  most  liberal  fees  to  the 
physician  in  cases  of  success,  they  frequently  put  him 
to  death,  when  his  patient  did  not  recover,  on  the 
ground  that  it  must  have  been  his  fault  if  he  did  not 
find  out  the  curing  remedy. 

When  the  French  became  acquainted  with  that  in- 
teresting nation,  it  is  said  it  had  much  degenerated 
from  its  former  state  of  power,  population,  and  civiliza- 
tion. The  Natchez  were  then  thought  to  be  in  the  last 
stage  of  decline,  and  doomed  to  approaching  and  inevi- 
table destruction.  They  knew  it,  and  crouched  gloom- 
ily under  that  fatality  which,  in  the  days  of  antiquity, 
hung  with  such  terrific  perseverance  over  certain  indi- 
viduals, certain  families,  and  even  whole  nations.  A 
century  had  hardly  elapsed,  when  the  sacred  fire  being 
accidentally  extinguished,  the  guardians  concealed  the 
fact  to  escape  death,  and  relighted  the  altar  with  pro- 
fane and  ordinary  fire.  A  short  time  after,  the  same 
accident  happened  in  the  other  temple,  and  on  its  being 
discovered,  fire  was  procured,  according  to  the  old  cus- 
tom, from  the  first  temple.  But  it  was  prof  une  fire  ;  so 
that  the  nation  was  thus  deprived  of  that  celestial  flame 
which  their  great  lawgiver  and  first  sovereign  had 
brought  down  with  him  from  the  Sun.  The  sacrile- 
gious guardian  of  the  sacred  fire,  who  had  concealed 
the  truth,  being  on  his  death-bed,  and  racked  with  re- 
morse, made  at  last  the  awful  confession  of  his  guilt — a 
confession  which  sounded  in  the  ears  of  the  Natchez  as 
their  death-knell.  From  the  day  when  they  had  lost 
the  fire  from  the  sun,  calamities  on  calamities  had  rained 
down  on  their  tribe ;  and  although  they  had  sought  to 
remedy  the  evil,  by  taking  fire  from  a  tree  struck  and 
ignited  by  lightning,  they  felt  that  their  prosperity  was 
withering  and  fast  dropping  its  yellow  leaves,  and  that 
there  would  soon  remain  nothing  but  its  naked  and  life- 


350  THE  CHOCTAW  INDIANS. 

less  trunk  to  blacken  and  rot  away  under  the  wrath  of 
heaven.  Nothing  could  wipe  away  from  their  souls  the 
belief  that  the  entire  annihilation  of  their  race  was  at 
hand  ;  and  their  tradition  said  that  the  guilty  guardian, 
who  had  to  answer  for  the  destruction  of  a  whole  na- 
tion, was  locked  up  by  the  Great  Spirit  in  one  of  those 
large  mounds  which  are  to  this  day  to  be  seen  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  present  city  of  Natchez.  There  he  is 
doomed  to  languish  forever,  and  to  be  eternally  barred 
from  entering  the  world  of  spirits,  unless  he  can  make 
fire  with  two  dry  sticks,  which  he  is  ever  rubbing  to- 
gether with  desperate  eagerness.  Now  and  then  a  light 
smoke  issues  from  the  sticks — the  wretch  rubs  on  with 
increased  and  lightning  rapidity ; — and  just  as  a  bright 
spark  begins  to  shoot  up,  the  sluices  of  his  eyes  open 
against  his  will,  and  pour  out  a  deluge  ef  tears,  which 
drown  the  nascent  fire.  Thus  he  is  condemned  to  a 
ceaseless  work,  and  to  periodical  fits  of  hope  and  de- 
spair. It  is  Ixion's  ever-rolling  rock,  or  the  bottomless 
tun  of  the  Danaides. 

The  Choctaws  occupied  a  very  large  territory  be- 
tween the  Mississippi  and  the  Tombecbee  rivers,  from 
the  frontiers  of  the  Colapissas  and  of  the  Biloxis,  on  the 
shores  of  lakes  Pontchartrain  and  Borgne,  up  to  the 
frontiers  of  the  Natchez,  of  the  Yazoos,  and  of  the 
Chickasaws.  They  owned  more  than  fifty  important 
villages,  and  it  was  said  that  at  one  time,  they  could 
have  brought  into  the  field  twenty-five  thousand  war- 
rioi-s.  Chacta,  Chatka,  or  Choctaw,  spelling  it  accord- 
ing to  the  various  pronunciations,  means  charming  voice 
in  the  Indian  dialect.  It  appears  that  the  Choctaws 
had  a  great  aptitude  for  music  and  singing.  Hence  the 
name  that  was  given  to  them.  Very  little  is  known 
about  their  origin,  although  some  writers  pretend  that 
they  came  from  the  province  of  Kamtschatka.  It  is 


CHEF  MENTEUR,  THE  LYING  CHIEF.  351 

said  that  they  suddenly  made  their  appearance,  and 
rapidly  overran  the  whole  country.  That  appearance 
was  so  spontaneous,  that  it  seemed  as  if  they  had 
sprung  up  from  the  earth  like  mushrooms.  With  re- 
gard to  their  manners,  their  customs,  and  their  degree 
of  civilization,  it  is  sufficient  to  say,  that  they  had  many 
characteristic  traits  in  common  with  the  other  Indian 
nations.  However,  they  were  much  inferior  to  the  Nat- 
chez in  many  respects.  They  had  more  imperfect  no- 
tions of  the  divinity,  and  were  much  more  superstitious. 
They  were  proverbially  filthy  and  stupid  in  the  estima- 
tion of  all  who  knew  them,  and  they  were  exceedingly 
boastful,  although  notoriously  less  brave  than  any  other 
of  the  red  tribes. 

What  the  Choctaws  were  most  conspicuous  for,  was 
their  hatred  of  falsehood  and  their  love  of  truth.  Tra- 
dition relates  that  one  of  their  chiefs  became  so  addicted 
to  the  vice  of  lying,  that,  in  disgust,  they  drove  him 
away  from  their  territory.  In  the  now  parish  of  Or- 
leans, back  of  Gentilly,  there  is  a  tract  of  land,  in  the 
shape  of  an  isthmus,  projecting  itself  into  Lake  Pont- 
chartrain,  not  far  from  the  Rigolets,  and  terminating  in 
what  is  called  "Pointe  aux  herbes,"  or  herb  point.  It 
was  there  that  the  exiled  Choctaw  chief  retired  with 
his  family  and  a  few  adherents,  near  a  bayou  which  dis- 
charges itself  into  the  lake.  From  that  circumstance, 
this  tract  of  land  received,  and  still  retains  the  appel- 
lation of  "  Chef  Menteur,"  or  "  Lying  Chief." 

The  Chickasaws  ruled  over  a  fertile  region,  which  ex- 
tended from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Tombecbee,  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  state  of  Mississippi,  and  near  the  fron- 
tiers of  the  present  state  of  Tennessee.  They  numbered 
from  two  to  three  thousand  warriors,  and  were  by  far 
the  most  warlike  of  all  the  Louisiana  tribes.  They  had 
numerous  slaves,  well-cultivated  fields,  and  numerous 


352  CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

herds  of  cattle.  They  never  deviated  in  their  attach- 
ment to  the  English,  and  they  became  exceedingly  trou- 
blesome to  the  French.  With  some  shades  of  difference, 
they  had,  on  the  main,  the  invariable  and  well-known 
attributes  of  the  Indian  character.  Therefore,  to  pur- 
sue the  subject  into  further  details  would,  perhaps,  be 
running  the  danger  of  falling  into  the  dullness  of  monot- 
onous and  uninteresting  description.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
that  they  were  the  Spartans,  as  the  Natchez  were  the 
Athenians,  and  the  Choctaws  the  Boeotians  of  Louisiana. 


FOURTH  LECTURE. 

TRANSFER  OF  THE  SEAT  OF  GOVERNMENT  TO  NEW  ORLEANS — ITS  POPULATION  AND 
APPEARANCE  IN  1724 — BOISBRIANT,  GOVERNOR  AD  INTERIM — BLACK  CODE — EX- 
PULSION OF  THE  JEWS — CATHOLIC  RELIGION  TO  BE  THE  SOLE  RELIGION  OF  THE 
LAND — PERIER  APPOINTED  GOVERNOR — LEAGUE  OF  ALL  THE  OFFICERS  OF  GOVERN- 
MENT AGAINST  DE  LA  CHAISE,  THE  KlNG's  COMMISSARY HE  TRIUMPHS  OVER 

THEM  ALL REPUBLICANISM  OF  THE  COLONISTS THE  URSULINE  NUNS  AND  THE 

JESUITS — PUBLIC  IMPROVEMENTS  MADE  OR  CONTEMPLATED  BY  GOVERNOR  PERIER 
— CENSUS  IN  1727 — EXPENSES  OF  THE  COLONIAL  ADMINISTRATION — EDICT  OF 
HENRY  THE  SECOND  AGAINST  UNMARRIED  WOMEN — OTHER  FACTS  AND  EVENTS 
FROM  1723  TO  1727 — TRADITIONS  ON  THE  Music  HEARD  AT  THE  MOUTH  OF  PAS- 
eAGOULA  RIVER,  AND  ON  THE  DATE  TREE  AT  THE  CORNER  OF  DAUPHINE  AND 
ORLEANS  STREETS. 

IN  1*723,  the  seat  of  government  was  at  last  and  de- 
finitively transferred  to  New  Orleans,  much  to  the  satis- 
faction of  Bienville.  That  city,  now  so  populous  and  so 
flourishing,  contained  at  that  time  about  one  hundred 
very  humble  buildings,  and  between  two  and  three 
hundred  souls.  All  the  streets  were  drawn  at  right 
angles,  dividing  the  town  into  sixty-six  squares  of  three 
hundred  feet  each.  The  city  thus  presented  a  front  on 
the  river  of  eleven  squares,  by  six  in  depth.  The 
squares  were  divided  into  lots  of  sixty  feet  front  on 
the  street,  with  a  depth  varying  from  one  hundred  and 
twenty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty.  The  name  of  New 
Orleans  was  given  to  the  city  in  compliment  to  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  Regent  of  France,  and  Chartres-street 
was  called  after  the  Duke  of  Chartres,  son  of  the 
Regent : — Maine,  Conde,  Conti,  Toulouse,  and  Bourbon 
streets  were  also  named  after  the  princes  of  the  royal 
blood,  such  as  the  Prince  of  Conti,  Duke  of  Maine, 


354:  THE  "  GERMAN  COAST." 

Prince  of  Conde,  Count  of  Toulouse,  and  Duke  of  Bour- 
bon. One  of  the  streets  was  honored  with  the  name 
of  Bienville,  the  founder  of  the  city,  and  deservedly  has 
that  name  been  lately  bestowed  on  one  of  the  parishes 
of  this  state.  The  only  establishments  which  then  ex- 
isted between  New  Orleans  and  Natchez,  were  those  of 
Mezieres  and  St.  Reine, — a  little  below  Point  Coupee ; 
that  of  Diron  d'Artaguette,  at  Baton  Rouge ;  that  of 
Paris  Duvernay,  near  Bayou  Manchac ;  of  the  Marquis 
d'Ancenis,  near  Bayou  Lafourche;  of  the  Marquis 
d'Artagnac,  at  the  Cannes  Brulees,  or  Burnt  Canes ; 
of  De  Meuse,  a  little  lower,  and  of  the  Brothers  Chauvin, 
at  Tchoupitoulas.  With  the  exception  of  the  Chauvins, 
these  aristocratic  possessors  of  the  virgin  soil  of  Louisi- 
ana were  not  destined  to  strike  deep  roots  in  it,  and 
their  names  soon  disappeared  from  the  list  of  the  land- 
holders in  the  colony. 

In  that  year,  however,  another  settlement^  which  was 
to  grow  rapidly  in  importance,  was  made  on  that  por- 
tion of  the  banks  of  the  river  which  now  forms  the 
parishes  of  St.  Charles  and  St.  John  the  Baptist.  Large 
tracts  of  land  were  conceded  to  thos&  (jrernrrms,  whom 
Law  had  sent  from  Alsatia,  to  settle  on  the  twelve 
square  miles  of  territory  which  had  been  granted  to 
him  on  Arkansas  River,  by  the  India  Company.  When 
these  German  families  were  informed  of  the  fate  of  Law, 
and  saw  themselves  abandoned  to  their  own  resources 
in  that  distant  part  of  the  colony,  they  broke  up  their 
establishment,  and  descended  the  Mississippi  in  a  body, 
with  the  intention  of  returning  to  their  native  country. 
But,  fortunately,  they  were  prevailed  upon  to  settle  at 
a  distance  of  about  thirty  miles  from  New  Orleans,  on 
a  section  of  the  banks  of  the  river,  which,  from  that  cir- 
cumstance, drew  the  appellation  of  the  German  Coast, 
under  which  it  was  long  known.  Every  Saturday,  they 


SUFFERING  FROM  WANT  OF  PROVISIONS.  355 

were  seen  floating  down  the  river  in  small  boats,  to 
carry  to  the  market  of  New  Orleans  the  provisions 
which  were  the  result  of  their  industry.  From  this 
humble  but  decent  origin,  issued  some  of  our  most  re- 
spectable citizens,  and  of  our  most  wealthy  sugar  planters. 
They  have,  long  ago,  forgotten  the  German  language, 
and  adopted  the  French,  but  the  names  of  some  of  them 
clearly  indicate  the  blood  that  flows  in  their  veins,  al- 
though more  than  one  name  has  been  so  Frenchified,  as 
to  appear  of  Gallic  parentage.  The  German  Coast,  so 
poor  and  beggarly  at  first,  became  in  time  the  pro- 
ducer and  the  receptacle  of  such  wealth,  that,  a  century 
after,  it  was  called  the  Gold  Coast,  or  Cote  cFor. 

In  the  very  year  when  these  industrious  people  came 
to  reside  at  the  German  Coast,  and  before  they  could 
show  what  rich  harvests  could  spring  from  the  prolific 
soil  of  Louisiana,  the  colony  suffered  extremely  from  the 
want  of  provisions,  and,  in  a  dispatch  of  the  24th  of 
January,  the  Superior  Council  informed  the  French 
government  "  that  the  colonists  would  absolutely  starve, 
if  the  India  Company  did  not  send  by  every  vessel 
an  ample  supply  of  salt  meat."  From  1699  to  1Y23, 
such  representations,  however  incredible  they  may  ap- 
pear, had  been  made  every  year,  and  had  forced  the 
French  government  into  heavy  expenses,  so  that  it  is 
calculated  in  a  memoir  of  that  epoch,  that  the  few  in- 
dividuals scattered  over  Louisiana  had,  at  an  average, 
cost  annually  to  France,  in  provisions  alone,  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  livres.  There  must  cer- 
tainly have  been  much  abuse  and  malversation  at  the 
bottom  of  this  state  of  things,  and  it  is  evident  that 
there  was  in  the  organization  of  the  colony  a  defect, 
which,  if  it  starved  some,  fattened  others.  Be  it  as  it 
may,  the  existence  of  the  colony  was  nothing  but  a  pro- 


356  THE  GREAT  HURRICANE  OF  1723. 

longed  agony.  The  principle  of  life  seemed  to  be 
wanting  in  her. 

Thus,  the  colonists  in  Louisiana,  during  the  year 
1723,  were  dragging  along,  sluggishly  and  miserably,  a 
rickety  sort  of  existence,  when,  on  the  llth  of  Septem- 
ber, there  burst  upon  them  a  tremendous  hurricane, 
which  lasted  three  days.  The  church,  the  hospitals, 
and  thirty  houses  in  the  modest  little  hamlet  of  New 
Orleans,  were  pulled  down  by  the  wind.  Three  ships 
that  were  in  port  were  completely  wrecked :  the  crops 
were  destroyed :  very  few  of  the  edifices  on  the  embryo 
farms  of  the  colonists  could  withstand  the  fury  of  the 
hurricane,  and  were  swept  away  like  chaff,  or  autumn 
leaves.  The  desolation  was  so  widely  spread,  and  so 
intensely  felt,  that  the  first  impulse  of  the  people  in 
their  despair  was  to  quit  the  colony  forever :  and,  no 
doubt,  they  would  have  executed  their  design,  if  they 
could  have  procured  means  of  transportation.  A  com- 
pany of  infantry  that  had  embarked  at  Biloxi  for  New 
Orleans,  availed  themselves  of  this  favorable  oppor- 
tunity for  escape,  took  possession  of  the  vessel,  and 
forced  her  captain  to  sail  for  Charleston,  where  they 
landed  safely  with  their  arms  and  baggage. 

It  frequently  happens  that  both  the  excess  of  misery 
and  of  prosperity,  has  a  tendency  to  develop  the  evil 
propensities  of  the  human  heart.  It  was,  on  this  occa- 
sion, strikingly  exemplified  by  the  colonists,  who,  at  all 
times,  had  been  strongly  addicted  to  gaming,  but  who 
now,  seeking  perhaps  for  artificial  excitement,  to  lose 
the  consciousness  of  their  wretchedness,  went  on  play- 
ing with  such  wanton  recklessness  at  all  kinds  of  games 
of  chance,  that  the  authorities  found  it  necessary  to 
interfere,  and  to  prohibit  with  stringent  penalties  their 
indulging  in  this  culpable  and  dangerous  passion. 

In  spite  of  all  the  misfortunes  which  had  befallen  the 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  COLONY.  357 

country,  its  agriculture  had  been  developing  itself  to 
some  extent,  although  checked  by  many  obstacles. 
The  number  of  negroes,  or  slaves,  was  gradually  in- 
creasing, and,  this  year,  it  was  determined  by  an  ordi- 
nance, that  the  negroes  introduced  by  the  India  Com- 
pany from  Africa,  should  be  sold  for  676  livres  per 
head,  on  a  credit  of  one,  two,  and  three  years,  payable 
in  rice  and  tobacco.  The  price  of  rice  was  fixed  at  12 
livres  the  barrel,  and  tobacco  at  26  livres  per  hundred 
pounds.  Wine  was  to  be  supplied  to  the  colonists  for 
26  livres  the  cask,  and  brandy  at  120  livres.  Another 
ordinance  fixed  the  value  of  the  Spanish  pistoles  and 
dollars,  which,  from  the  proximity  of  the  Spanish  prov- 
inces, had  become  current  in  the  colony. 

The  spiritual  concerns  of  the  colony  were  not  neg- 
lected. Louisiana  was  divided  into  three  grand  eccle- 
siastical districts.  The  first  was  intrusted  to  the  Capu- 
chins, and  extended  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Illinois.  The  Carmelites  had  jurisdiction  over 
all  that  section  of  country  which  spread  from  the  Ali- 
bamons  to  Mobile ; — the  Wabash  and  Illinois  district 
was  the  lot  of  the  Jesuits.  Orders  were  given  and  pro- 
visions were  made  for  the  construction  of  churches  and 
chapels,  the  colonists  having  complained  of  their  being 
obliged,  for  want  of  proper  places  of  worship,  to  assem- 
ble in  the  open  air  round  wooden  crosses  erected  in  the 
fields,  or  public  thoroughfares  and  roads. 

The  necessity  of  deepening  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  French  govern- 
ment at  the  earliest  period  of  the  establishment  of  the 
colony,  and  the  engineer  Pauger  made,  in  this  year, 
1723,  a  very  interesting  report  on  the  practicability  of 
arriving  at  this  desired  result.  He  represented  that  it 
was  easy  and  not  expensive  to  fix  (fixer)  or  to  control 
the  current  of  the  Mississippi,  so  as  to  make  it  subser- 


358          REMARKS  ON  THE  MOUTHS  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

vient  to  the  plan  of  operating  upon  the  sand-banks 
which  obstructed  the  several  mouths  of  the  river,  and 
so  as  to  give  admittance  to  the  largest  ships,  whatever 
might  be  the  depth  of  *  water  they  drew ;  that,  if  neces- 
sary, a  fine  artificial  harbor  with  quays  might  be  cre- 
ated at  the  Balize,  with  the  numerous  resources  which 
the  nature  of  the  locality  offered,  and  that  it  might  be 
effectually  protected  by  such  fortifications  as  he  indi- 
cated. He  recommended  to  shut  up  all  the  mouths  of 
the  river,  except  one,  in  order  to  force  a  greater  volume 
of  water  into  the  remaining  channel,  which  would,  con- 
sequently, acquire  more  depth ;  and  he  calculated  that 
the  increased  velocity  and  power  of  the  current  would 
sweep  away  the  whole  of  the  mud  or  sand-bank  which 
barred  the  entrance  of  the  Mississippi.  He  suggested 
that  the  immense  quantity  of  drift-wood  which  it  car- 
ried down,  might  be  secured  and  fastened  to  its  banks 
to  give  them  greater  solidity,  and  to  narrow  the  bed  of 
the  river.  He  also  stated  that,  for  the  execution  of  the 
works  he  described,  the  government  had  at  hand  inex- 
haustible cypress  forests,  furnishing  an  incorruptible 
kind  of  wood,  which,  without  much  expense,  might  be 
used  to  any  extent  and  with  incalculable  advantages 
and  results. 

In  1849,  when  I  write  these  lines,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  French  colony  in  North  America,  but  there 
is  in  it  a  gigantic  empire  composed  of  thirty  sovereign 
states,  having  in  the  aggregate  a  population  of  twenty- 
five  millions  of  souls,  and  a  commerce  more  extensive 
than  that  of  any  nation  in  the  world  except  Great  Brit- 
ain. The  limits  of  that  empire,  known  under  the  ap- 
pellation of  the  United  States  of  America,  extend  from 
the  frozen  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  sun-burnt 
hills  of  New  Mexico  and  the  golden  Californian  shores 
of  the  Pacific.  The  thousands  of  miles  of  country 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  DEEPENING  THEM.       359 

which  the  Mississippi  waters- in  its  course  belong  exclu- 
sively to  this  mighty  people,  and,  consequently,  the  deep- 
ening of  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  giving  a 
free  access  to  what  has  justly  been  called  an  inland  sea, 
on  the  shores  of  which  stand  such  cities  as  New  Or- 
leans and  St.  Louis,  in  a  boundless  region  where  several 
millions  of  the  human  race  are  already  domiciliated,  and 
where  countless  millions  will  reside  in  the  future,  would 
be  one  of  the  most  important  national  works  which  the 
government  of  the  United  States  could  undertake ;  and 
yet  it  is  no  more  thought  of  than  if  it  was  not  recom- 
mended by  the  eloquence  of  its  own  magnitude,  and 
if  it  had  not  repeatedly  been  brought  before  Congress 
by  more  than  one  legislative  resolution  of  the  State  of 
Louisiana.  True  it  is,  that  it  would  not  cost  perhaps 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year,  to  have  forty  feet 
of  water  at  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi,  through  which 
pass  annually  so  many  millions  of  importation  and  ex- 
portation in  every  sort  of  goods  and  produce ; — that  it 
would  stimulate  and  increase  commerce,  by  the  afford- 
ing of  new  facilities  and  the  diminishing  of  obstacles, 
risks,  and  expenses  to  ship-owners  and  merchants ;  that 
it  would  be  investing  money  that  would  return  the 
highest  interest ; — that  it  would  procure  to  the  people 
the  precious  advantage  of  studding  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi  with  navy  yards,  at  points  teeming  with 
infinite  resources,  far  from  the  guns  of  hostile  fleets ; — 
and  that  it  would  make  of  that  mighty  stream  a  harbor, 
an  asylum,  and  a  home  for  our  winged  monarchs  of  the 
ocean.  True  it  is,  that  the  expenses  attending  the  ac- 
complishment of  such  a  vast  object,  would  be  micro- 
scopical when  compared  with  the  results  of  every  kind 
which  would  be  attained,  and  that  large  sums  have 
been  lavishly  spent  in  more  favored  states,  because 
they  were  of  more  political  importance.  But,  long  ago, 


360  INDIAN  TROUBLES. 

would  th,is  much-needed  improvement  have  been  car- 
ried into  execution,  which,  for  more  than  a  century,  by 
its  immense  importance,  its  easy  feasibility,  and  the  im- 
perious necessity  which  demands  it,  has  struck  with  the 
force  of  self-demonstration  every  mind  that  has  be- 
stowed the  slightest  attention  on  the  subject,  if  Louisi- 
ana had  been  blessed,  like  New  York,  with  a  large  con- 
gressional representation.  Let  us  hope  that  the  time 
will  come,  when,  to  secure  the  success  of  some  move  on 
the  political  chess-board  of  the  day,  and  to  gain  the 
complement  of  certain  votes  required  to  fill  up  the  scale 
of  power,  that  great  national  work  shall  be  done,  which 
was  delayed  so  long  when  it  was  demanded  only  by  the 
wants  of  commerce,  the  sense  of  justice,  and  the  voice 
of  public  interest. 

A  treaty  of  peace  having  been  concluded  between 
Spain  and  France,  Pensacola,  which  had  been  taken  by 
the  French  in  1719,  was  restored  to  the  Spaniards. 
This  peace  dissipated  the  fears  and  feelings  of  insecu- 
rity which  existed  in  the  colony  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Cuba  and  of  the  other  Spanish  possessions  on  the 
continent ;  and  a  successful  campaign  which  the  Choc- 
taws  had  undertaken  against  the  Chickasaws,  at  the  in- 
stigation of  the  French,  gave  such  a  crushing  blow  to 
this  warlike  tribe,  as  to  secure  the  country  for  a  while 
against  their  depredations.  Bienville  said,  in  one  of 
his  dispatches,  "The  Choctaws,  whom  I  have  set  in 
motion  against  the  Chickasaws,  have  destroyed  entirely 
three  villages  of  this  ferocious  nation,  which  disturbed 
our  commerce  on  the  river.  They  have  raised  about 
four  hundred  scalps,  and  made  one  hundred  prisoners. 
Considering  this  state  of  things,  it  is  a  most  important 
advantage  which  we  have  obtained — the  more  so,  that 
it  has  not  cost  one  drop  of  French  blood,  through  the 
care  which  I  took  of  opposing  those  barbarians  to  one 


INTRIGUES  OF  BIENVILLE'S  ENEMIES.  361 

another.  Their  self-destruction,  operated  in  this  man- 
ner, is  the  sole  efficacious  means  of  insuring  tranquillity 
to  the  colony."  Bienville  also  wrote  that  there  were 
thirteen  feet  water  on  the  bar  at  the  Balize,  and  that 
he  was  actively  engaged  in  fortifying  that  pass,  and  in 
preparing  lodgings  for  a  small  garrison. 

The  Chickasaws  had  hardly  been  disabled  from  do- 
ing further  mischief,  when  Bienville  was  informed  that 
the  Natchez,  in  consequence  of  some  difficulties  which 
had  sprung  up  between  them  and  the  French,  had 
murdered  two  or  three  of  the  latter  and  plundered  their 
habitations.  He  immediately  went  up  the  river  with 
an  army  of  seven  hundred  men,  and  having  obtained 
the  sacrifice  of  some  heads,  in  atonement  for  those  of 
the  French  who  had  been  killed,  he  smoked  the  calu- 
met of  peace  with  the  Indians,  and  only  three  days 
after  his  arrival  at  Natchez,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of 
speeding  back  to  New  Orleans,  after  having  put  an  end 
to  hostilities  which  threatened  a  protracted  and  a  dan- 
gerous war. 

But  the  Indians  were  not  the  worst  enemies  he  had 
to  cope  with.  He  had  active  and  ever-plotting  adver- 
saries in  the  colony,  and  no  vessel  returned  to  France 
without  carrying  back  heavy  accusations  against  the 
Governor  of  Louisiana.  Hubert,  the  king's  commissary, 
was  one  of  the  foremost,  and  kept  repeating  to  the 
French  government  that  Louisiana  was  the  finest  country 
in  the  world ;  that  if  it  had  a  fault,  it  was  that  its  virgin 
soil  was  too  rich,  which  was  injurious  to  agriculture,  the 
first  harvests  being  too  luxuriant  to  be  productive ;  but 
that  if  the  colony  did  not  prosper  more,  it  was  owing  to 
the  mal-ad ministration  of  Bienville,  and  to  his  favoritism 
for  his  numerous  relations  and  allies.  The  fact  is,  that 
the  colony,  as  for  the  past,  was  divided  into  two  factions, 
and  the  quarrels  of  its  officers  and  administrators  waxed 


362  RECALL  OF  BIENVILLE— BLACK  CODE. 

so  hot  and  so  acrimonious,  that  almost  every  day, 
anonymous  and  defamatory  writings  were  stuck  up  at 
every  street  corner  in  New  Orleans,  and  satirical  com- 
positions were  clandestinely  circulated,  which  produced 
much  irritation  and  many  duels.  The  Superior  Council 
had  to  publish  an  ordinance  on  the  subject,  and  to  in- 
flict heavy  penalties  on  those  who  participated  in  the 
composition  and  publication  of  these  libels. 

On  the  16th  of  January,  1724,  Bienville  had  the 
mortification  of  receiving  a  dispatch  from  the  French 
government,  by  which  he  was  called  to  France  to  an- 
swer the  charges  brought  against  him.  Perhaps  to 
soften  the  blow,  his  cousin  Boisbriant  was  appointed 
governor  ad  interim.  This  was  the  second  time  that 
his  enemies  had  succeeded  against  him,  and  forced  him 
to  visit  France  in  self-defense.  But  before  leaving  the 
colony,  he  published,  in  the  month  of  March  of  the 
year  1724,  a  Black  Code,  containing  all  the  legislation 
applicable  to  slaves.  It  remained  in  force  until  after 
the  cession  of  Louisiana  by  Spain  to  France,  and 
by  France  to  the  United  States,  and  some  of  its  pro- 
visions have  been  incorporated  into  the  Black  Code 
which  is  now  the  law  of  the  land.  As  it  embodies  the 
views,  feelings,  and  legislation  of  our  ancestors  more 
than  a  century  ago,  on  a  subject  which  has  been  daily 
growing  in  importance,  I  have  deemed  it  of  sufficient 
interest  to  lay  the  whole  of  it  before  the  public.*  Its 
first  and  its  third  articles  were,  it  must  be  confessed, 
strangely  irrelevant  to  the  matter  in  consideration.  Thus, 
the  first  declared  that  the  Jews  were  forever  expelled 
from  the  colony ;  and  the  third,  that  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic religion  was  the  only  religious  creed  which  would 
be  tolerated  in  Louisiana.  By  what  concatenation  of 
causes  or  of  ideas,  these  provisions  concerning  the  su- 

*  See  the  Appendix. 


MORALS  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  363 

premacy  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  and  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Jews  came  to  be  inserted  into  the  Black 
Code,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine. 

I  transcribe  here  a  short  royal  ordinance,  which 
shows  the  nature  of  the  morality  of  the  country  at  the 
time,  and  which  demonstrates  the  state  of  distraction 
and  of  bitter  conflict  with  which  the  colonists  were 
afflicted,  instead  of  working  harmoniously  for  their  mu- 
tual welfare. 

"Royal  ordinance  concerning  the  breaking  up  of 
seals,  and  the  violation  of  the  secrecy  of  letters. 

"  Whereas  the  directors  of  the  India  Company  have 
represented  to  us,  that  in  our  province  of  Louisiana 
many  breaches  of  trust  are  committed  with  regard  to 
the  letters  and  packages  which  are  received  from  Eu- 
rope, and  those  which  are  destined  to  be  transported 
from  said  colony  to  our  kingdom;  that  some  evil- 
minded  persons,  either  through  malicious  intentions  or 
a  guilty  curiosity,  intercept  said  letters  and  packages, 
and  after  having  opened  them,  make  public  what  they 
contain,  whereby  quarrels  and  animosities  are  produced 
in  our  colony,  we  have  deemed  it  expedient  to  stop  the 
course  of  an  abuse  so  prejudicial  to  commerce  and  so 
repugnant  to  good  faith :  and  to  this  effect,  we  have  de- 
clared and  ordained  that  all  persons,  officers,  clerks,  inhab- 
itants, or  others,  on  being  convicted  of  having  detained 
or  intercepted  one  or  several  letters  or  packages,  shall  be 
sentenced,  to  wit :  the  officers  or  clerks,  to  a  fine  of  five 
hundred  livres,  to  be  deprived  of  their  office  or  offices, 
and  to  be  forever  incapable  of  holding  any  other  under 
our  government ;  and  that  the  inhabitants  (habitants) 
and  others  shall  be  sentenced  to  the  iron  collar  (carcan), 
and  to  a  fine  of  five  hundred  livres." 

The  affairs  of  the  company,  far  from  improving,  were 
rapidly  becoming  worse.  Louisiana  was  losing  ground 


36-i    OBSTACLES  TO  THE  PROSPERITY  OF  THE  COLONY. 

/  in  the  estimation  of  the  French  government,  and  it 
was  thought  necessary  to  diminish  the  expenses  of  such 
an  unprofitable  possession.  Thus,  by  an  ordinance  of 
the  7th  of  September,  the  military  forces  of  the  colony 
were  reduced  from  twenty  companies  to  ten,  com- 
manded by  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  De  la  Tour, 
D'Artaguette,  Du  Tisne,  Lamarque,  Le  Blanc,  Des 
Liettes,  Marchand  de  Courcelles,  Renault  d'Hauterive, 
and  Pradel.  Such  being  the  economical  views  of  the 
French  government  with  regard  to  Louisiana,  the  ex- 
cellent observations  and  plans  presented  by  the  engi- 
neer Pauger,  concerning  the  improvements  to  be  made 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  could  not  be  carried 
even  into  partial  execution ;  but  as  a  reward  for  his 
labors,  he  was  appointed  member  of  the  Superior 
Council. 

The  colony  had  always  greatly  suffered  from  the 
want  of  surveyors.  The  grantees  of  lands  experienced 
much  difficulty  and  long  delays  to  be  put  in  possession 
of  their  grants,  and  frequently,  these  surveys  being 
made  by  persons  who  were  incapable,  and  not  legally 
empowered  to  officiate,  much  confusion  and  uncertainty 
ensued,  and  promised  future  litigation  when  the  country 
should  be  more  thickly  settled.  To  remedy  this  evil, 
two  brothers,  named  Lassus,  were  sent  to  Louisiana 
with  full  powers  to  act  as  engineers  in  the  name  of  the 
company. 

One  of  the  curses  of  the  colony  was  the  constant 
fluctuation  of  its'  monetary  circulation.  Not  only  its 
paper  currency  underwent  rapid  depreciation  as  soon 
as  a  new  one  succeeded  that  which  fell  into  discredit,  but 
the  company,  for  the  most  nefarious  jobbing  purposes, 
used  to  change,  by  repeated  edicts,  the  standard  of  the 
Spanish  dollars  and  pistoles,  which  were  the  chief  me- 
tallic currency  of  the  country.  Thus,  by  an  edict  of  the 


THE  COMPANY  TAMPERS  WITH  THEIR  CURRENCY.        365 

23d  of  February  of  the  preceding  year,  the  company 
had  suddenly  raised  the  value  of  the  dollar  from  4  livres 
to  7  livres  10  centimes ;  and  twelve  months  after,  on  the 
26th  of  February,  IT 2 4,  the  pistole  was  reduced  from  30 
to  28  livres,  and  the  dollar  from  7  livres  10  centimes  to 
7  livres.  On  the  2d  of  May,  there  was  another  reduction 
for  the  dollar  from  7  livres  to  5  livres  12  centimes,  and 
for  the  pistole,  from  28  to  22  livres  8  centimes.  On  the 
30th  of  October,  there  came  a  further  reduction.  Thus, 
from  22  livres  8  centimes,  the  pistole  was  brought  down 
to  18  livres,  and  the  dollar,  from  5  livres  12  centimes 
to  4  livres  10  centimes.  It  would  be  tedious  to  go  into 
all  the  details  of  these  financial  operations,  and  to  inves- 
tigate their  real  causes.  It  is  evident  that  there  must 
have  been  at  the  bottom  of  them  some  dark  fraud, 
greedy  corruption,  and  thieving  speculation,  which  en- 
riched some  individuals  at  the  expense  of  the  sheepish 
multitude.  To  give  an  idea  of  the  perturbation  which 
was  produced  in  the  affairs  of  the  colony,  it  is  sufficient 
to  state  that,  in  the  course  of  two  years,  there  was,  by 
successive  arbitrary  ordinances,  a  rise  and  fall  of  nearly 
fifty  per  cent,  in  the  value  of  the  metallic  currency  of 
the  country.  An  indescribable  confusion  was  the  con- 
sequence of  such  measures.  The  pecuniary  situation  of 
every  colonist  was  changed ;  the  ruin  was  almost  gene- 
ral, but  some  large  fortunes  sprung  up  from  the  vast 
wreck.  Comments  are  unnecessary,  when  facts  speak 
so  loudly  and  so  distinctly.  The  mere  statement  of 
these  facts  suffices  to  show  what  was  the  spirit  which 
presided  over  the  administration  of  that  miserable  col- 
ony. Under  such  an  incubus,  how  could  it  prosper 
without  a  miracle,  when  suffering  from  the  violation  of 
all  the  laws  of  nature,  of  common  sense,  of  civilization, 
and  of  political  economy  ? 

In  1724,  the  white  population  of  Louisiana,  says  La 


366  .  PROTECTION  OF  DOMESTIC  ANIMALS. 

Harpe,  amounted  to  about  1700  souls,  and  the  black 
population  to  3300.  If  La  Harpe's  statement  be  true, 
it  shows  an  astonishing  diminution  of  the  white  popula- 
tion, which,  in  1721,  was  computed  at  5400.  There 
were  in  the  colony,  1100  cows,  300  bulls,  200  horses 
and  mares,  100  sheep,  100  goats,  some  hogs,  and  a  con- 
siderable number  of  domestic  fowls  of  every  kind.  In 
New  Orleans  and  its  vicinity,  there  were  about  1000 
souls,  including  the  troops,  and  the  persons  employed 
by  the  government. 

This  year,  1*724,  was  made  remarkable  by  the  pro- 
mulgation of  a  law  for  the  protection  of  domestic  ani- 
mals, and  by  its  Draconic  severity.  Thus,  the  king,  at 
the  request  of  the  Superior  Council  of  the  colony,  issued 
a  royal  edict,  declaring  that  the  voluntary  killing  or 
maiming  of  a  horse,  or  of  a  horned  animal,  by  any  one 
but  the  owner,  should  be  punishable  with  death,  and 
that  any  person  who,  without  leave  from  a  competent 
authority,  should  kill  his  own  horse,  his  own  cow,  and 
sheep,  or  their  young  ones,  if  of  the  female  sex,  should 
pay  a  fine  of  300  livres. 

The  enacting  of  such  a  law  was  no  doubt  prompted 
by  the  necessity  of  preserving  against  wanton  destruc- 
tion, animals  which  were  so  useful  to  the  colony,  and 
which  it  was  extremely  important  to  multiply.  But  as 
the  human  race  was  quite  as  scarce  in  the  colony,  and 
of  a  nobler  and  more  precious  nature,  it  seems  that  some 
scale  of  proportion  should  have  been  observed  between 
the  degrees  of  punishment  to  be  inflicted  for  the  killing 
of  an  ox,  or  of  a  man,  and  that  the  bipeds  and  quadru- 
peds should  not  have  been  assimilated  under  the  same 
aegis  of  protection.  What  a  wonderful  change  has 
taken  place  in  our  legislation,  in  our  manners  and 
customs,  in  the  whole  state  of  the  country,  and  in  its 
very  bones  and  sinews  since  1724  !  This  change  is 


DEFENSE  OF  BIENVILLE.  367 

so  great,  that  we  can  hardly  admit  the  reality  of  the 
evidence  that,  only  a  little  better  than  a  century  ago, 
one  might  have  been  broken  on  the  wheel,  or  decapi- 
tated in  Louisiana,  for  having  maimed  or  wounded  a 
horse  or  a  cow.  It  shows  that  blue-laws  were  not  con- 
fined altogether  to  the  soil  of  Connecticut. 

On  his  arrival  in  France,  Bienville  laid  his  defense, 
in  1T25,  before  the  French  government.  He  repre- 
sented that  he  had  honorably  served  the  king  for 
thirty-four  years,  during  the  greater  part  of  which  he 
had  acted  as  the  governor,  or  one  of  the  chief  officers 
of  Louisiana : — that  as  an  officer  of  the  Navy,  he  had 
served  seven  years,  and  gone  through  seven  campaigns 
at  sea: — that  during  these  seven  campaigns,  he  had 
been  present  at  all  the  sea-fights  of  his  brother  Iber- 
ville,  on  the  coasts  of  New  England,  of  Newfoundland, 
and  in  the  bay  of  Hudson,  and  among  other  engage- 
ments, at  the  one  which  took  place  between  one  single 
French  ship  of  42  guns,  commanded  by  Iberville, 
against  three  English  ships,  of  which  one  was  of  54 
guns,  and  two  of  42,  when,  after  a  struggle  of  five 
hours,  Iberville  sunk  the  fifty-four,  took  one  of  the  42, 
and  dismasted  the  other,  which  escaped  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  dark  shades  of  night ;  in  which  fight,  he, 
Bienville,  was  dangerously  wounded  in  the  head.  He 
further  represented,  that  it  was  he,  who,  in  1699,  joint- 
ly with  his  brother  Iberville,  had  discovered  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  established  a  colony  in  Louisi- 
ana ;  that,  for  twenty-seven  consecutive  years,  he  had 
devoted  himself  exclusively  to  the  colonization  of  that 
province ;  that  he  had  sacrificed  in  favor  of  this  public 
spirited  enterprise  the  brilliant  career  which  was  open 
for  him  in  his  majesty's  navy,  in  which  many  members 
of  his  family  had  distinguished  themselves,  seven  of  his 
brothers  having  died  naval  officers ;  that  his  father  had 


368  DEFENSE  OF  BIENVILLE. 

died  on  the  battle-field,  in  the  service  of  his  country ; 
that  there  still  remained  in  the  navy  three  of  his 
brothers :  De  Longueil,  governor  of  Montreal,  in  Can- 
ada, De  Serigny,  captain  of  a  ship  of  the  line,  and  De 
Chateaugue,  naval  ensign.  He  then  reviewed  what  he 
had  done  since  he  arrived  in  Louisiana,  the  unceasing 
hardships  and  difficulties  of  every  sort  it  had  been  his 
lot  to  struggle  against, — the  causes  which  excited  the 
jealousy  and  hostility  of  his  adversaries ;  and  he  labored 
to  prove  that  all  his  acts  had  been  in  conformity  with 
the  laws,  with  his  instructions,  with  the  interest  of  the 
colony,  and  of  the  king's  service,  and  that  it  was  to  his 
unremitted  exertions  and  devotion,  that  the  colony  was 
indebted  for  the  continuation  of  its  existence.  Bernard 
de  la  Harpe,  who,  in  his  historical  journal,  warmly  sup- 
ports Bienville  against  his  accusers,  says  pithily,  that 
the  best  proof  that  Bienville  had  always  been  more 
mindful  of  the  colony's  interest  and  welfare  than  of  his 
own,  was,  that  during  the  twenty-seven  years  he  had 
resided  in  the  colony,  and  wielded  power,  he  had  not 
acquired  in  property  more  than  60,000  livres  worth  (or 
$12,000),  which  was  more  than  could  be  said  of  his 
traducers. 

But  if  Bienville  had  implacable  enemies,  he  had 
friends,  blood  relations,  and  allies,  whose  fidelity  and 
active  zeal  were  a  compensation  equal  to  the  hostility 
from  which  he  had  to  suffer.  One  of  them,  De  Noyau, 
his  nephew,  presented  to  the  Superior  Council  a  peti- 
tion, in  which  he  stated,  that  he  wished  to  disprove  an 
assertion  which  had  been  advanced  by  his  uncle's  ene- 
mies, who  had  assured  the  French  government  that  the 
Indian  nations,  having  been  oppressed  by  Bienville, 
were  rejoiced  at  his  departure  from  Louisiana.  The 
Superior  Council  acceded  to  the  prayer  of  the  petition, 
and  De  Noyan  brought  before  them  deputations  from 


PERIER  APPOINTED  GOVERNOR.  369 

the  Oumas,  Tunicas,  Natchez,  Choctaws,  and  other 
tribes,  who  declared  that  Bienville  had  always  been 
their  best  friend,  and  that,  during  his  absence,  their 
hearts  would  ever  be  clad  in  mourning.  Nevertheless, 
Bienville,  in  spite  of  'his  own  exertions,  and  of  those  of 
his  friends,  was  dismissed  from  office,  and  Perier  was 
appointed  governor  in  his  place  on  the  9th  of  August, 
1726.  The  success  of  Bienville's  enemies  was  so  com- 
plete, that  Chateaugue,  his  brother,  who  had  long  been 
acting  as  " Lieutenant  de  Hoi"  or  lieutenant-governor 
in  the  colony,  was  also  removed,  and  that  the  two 
Noyans,  both  his  nephews,  one  a  captain,  and  the  other 
an  ensign  in  the  army,  were  broken,  and  the  order  was 
given  to  send  them  to  France.  The  object  of  these 
measures,  besides  the  gratification  of  private  malice, 
was  to  destroy  the  influence  of  Bienville,  to  sweep  away 
all  the  obstacles  of  a  foreseen  opposition  from  the  path 
of  his  successor,  and  to  make  level  ground  for  the  new 
administration. 

This  change,  and  the  other  modifications  which  were 
expected  in  the  administration,  produced  considerable 
perturbation,  ill-blood,  and  fears,  in  the  colony.  The 
excitement  was  increased  by  the  anticipation  of  a  war, 
and  the  proclamation  of  Boisbriant,.the  governor  ad  in- 
terim, and  De  la  Chaise,  the  king's  commissary,  which 
invited  all  the  colonists  to  carry  to  the  king's  ware- 
houses at  New  Orleans  and  Mobile,  all  the  ammunition 
and  provisions  they  could  command,  to  provide  for  the 
contingencies  of  a  war  likely  to  break  out  between 
Spain  and  England,  and  in  which  France  would  be 
called  to  take  a  part,  in  virtue  of  her  treaty  of  alliance 
with  Spain. 

It  will  be  recollected  that  De  la  Chaise  had  been  sent 
by  the  India  Company,  in  1723,  with  Du  Saunoy,  to  ex- 
ercise inquisitorial  powers  over  the  affairs  of  Louisiana, 


370  DE  LA  CHAISE. 

to  take  informations  on  the  conduct  of  all  the  officers 
and  administrators  of  the  colony,  and  to  report  thereon 
to  the  government.  Du  Saunoy  having  died  shortly 
after  his  arrival,  De  la  Chaise  had  remained  clothed 
with  all  the  authority  of  the  joint  commission.  As 
soon  as  he  entered  upon  his  duties,  the  old  intestine 
war  had  immediately  ceased  by  mutual  consent  between 
the  officers,  clerks,  agents  of  the  colonial  administration, 
and  they  had  leagued  themselves  against  the  common 
enemy — against  the  spy  whom  the  government  had  set 
in  terrorem  over  them  all.  De  la  Chaise  soon  found 
himself  in  a  hornet's  nest,  and  met  fierce  opposition  in 
every  thing,  and  from  every  quarter.  He  was  a  nephew 
of  the  celebrated  Jesuit,  Father  de  la  Chaise,  the  con- 
fessor to  Louis  the  XlVth,  and  of  patrician  birth,  the 
ancient  feudal  castle  of  his  family,  the  Cliateau  cPAix, 
being  situated  among  the  mountains  of  the  province  of 
Forez,  in  France.  His  father  was  the  son  of  George 
d1Aix,  Seigneur  de  la  Chaise,  who  was  distinguished 
for  his  military  services,  and  had  married  Renee  de 
Roehefort,  daughter  of  one  of  the  noblest  houses  of  the 
province.  Members  of  the  De  la  Chaise  family  con- 
tinued to  occupy  high  rank  in  the  army,  and  in  the 
king's  household,  and  one  of  them,  during  the  regency 
of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  died  a  lieutenant-general.  He 
had  acquired  reputation  for  his  uncompromising  integ- 
rity, and  his  unflinching  attachment  to  duty,  but,  says 
the  Duke  of  St.  Simon,  in  his  memoirs,  he  was  so  de- 
ficient in  intellect,  that  he  frequently  met  with  unlucky 
accidents,  in  his  military  career. 

De  la  Chaise,  the  king's  commissary  in  Louisiana,  was 
not  gifted  with  a  superior  intellect;  but  he  was  a  solid 
square  block  of  honesty,  who  neither  deviated  to  the 
right  nor  to  the  left  from  the  path  of  duty,  and  who, 
possessing  a  considerable  share  of  energy,  moved  stoutly 


HIS  INVESTIGATIONS.  371 

onward  in  the  accomplishment  of  his  mission,  regardless 
of  persons  and  of  consequences.  The  never-ceasing  re- 
pose of  his  handsome  features  was  an  unmistakable  in- 
dication of  the  unruffled  serenity  of  his  soul :  and  the 
dignity  of  his  person,  the  measured  propriety  of  his 
deportment  and  actions  were  such,  that  it  checked  in 
others  the  ebullition  of  passion,  forced  discussion  to  be 
courteous,  and  anger  itself  to  be  respectful.  With  the 
blandest  urbanity,  but  with  unwavering  firmness,  he 
called  every  one  to  account,  and  the  opposition,  which 
he  goaded  into  fury  by  his  steadiness  of  purpose,  and 
his  unsparing  investigations,  became  such,  that  the  gov- 
ernment thought  it  necessary  to  act  with  vigor.  Bois- 
briant,  the  governor  ad  interim,  Perrault,  Perry,  the 
engineer  Pauger,  the  attorney-general  Fleuriau,  all 
members  of  the  Superior  Council,  were  censured  with 
severity  by  the  government.  Moreover,  Governor 
Boisbriant,  Bienville's  cousin,  was  summoned  to  France, 
to  justify  his  acts:  Perrault,  Fazende,  and  Perry,  mem- 
bers of  the  council,  were  dismissed  from  office :  Fleu- 
riau, the  attorney-general,  was  invited  to  throw  up  his 
commission,  and  the  office  itself  was  suppressed  for  the 
moment.  They  had  the  mortification  to  receive  the 
imperative  order  to  appear  respectfully  before  De  la 
Chaise,  and  the  new  governor,  Perier,  or  before  whom- 
soever these  dignitaries  might  choose  to  designate,  and 
then  to  account  to  them  for  all  their  official  acts.  Af- 
ter that,  Perrault  and  Perry  were  to  be  transported  to 
France.  With  regard  to  Fazende,  the  other  councillor, 
he  was  permitted  to  remain  in  Louisiana  as  a  private 
citizen.  Through  the  influence  of  Boisbriant,  the  gov- 
ernor ad  interim,  who  was  violently  opposed  to  De  la 
Chaise,  a  spirit  of  insubordination  having  infected  the 
troops  themselves,  the  king  had  issued  an  ordinance,  on 
the  20th  of  November,  to  prohibit  all  assemblies  of 


372  THE  COMPANY'S  INSTRUCTIONS  TO 

officers.  It  was  a  complete  revolution  in  miniature,  but 
these  were  thought  to  be  mighty  events  in  the  lilipu- 
tian  colony  of  Louisiana. 

Thus,  De  la  Chaise  and  Perier  remained  the  supreme 
masters  in  Louisiana.  The  India  Company,  thinking  it 
good  policy  that  Perier  should  have  a  personal  interest 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  colony,  and  anxious  to  secure 
his  zealous  co-operation,  even  if  it  were  on  selfish 
grounds  only,  granted  him,  over  and  above  his  regular 
salary  as  governor,  a  concession  of  ten  acres  of  land, 
fronting  on  the  river,  with  the  ordinary  depth,  and  de- 
creed that  he  should  receive  the  donation  of  eight  ne- 
groes a  year,  as  long  as  he  should  retain  his  office. 

The  India  Company  gave  to  Perier  the  minutest  in- 
structions, to  serve  as  rules  for  his  administration.  They 
informed  him  that  they  expected  he  should  keep  up  the 
best  understanding  with  De  la  Chaise,  the  king's  commis- 
sary, whose  integrity,  zeal,  and  intelligence  were  well 
known  to  the  company,  and  that  there  should  be  no 
jealousy  and  no  clashing  of  authority  between  them ; 
that  from  the  sad  experience  of  the  past,  they  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  power  should  be  divided  in  the 
colony  between  two  persons  only,  each  one  responsible 
for  his  acts  in  his  respective  department;  that  one 
should  be  the  executive  officer  and  the  military  com- 
mander of  the  colony,  and  the  other  should  have  the 
supervision  of  its  police,  its  commerce,  and  its  judicial 
administration ;  that  they  should  remain  completely 
independent  of  each  other,  in  order  to  prevent  the  dis- 
sensions and  quarrels  which  had  hitherto  been  so  fatal 
to  the  prosperity  of  the  country ;  that  he,  Governor  Pe- 
rier, and  the  commissary,  De  la  Chaise,  would  find,  in  the 
company's  instructions,  their  powers  and  functions  clearly 
defined  and  kept  distinctly  apart ;  that  De  la  Chaise  hav- 
ing made  many  enemies  in  consequence  of  his  zeal  for  the 


PERIER  AND  DE  LA  CHAISE.  373 

interests  of  the  company,  Governor  Perier  was  required 
to  back  and  to  support  him  with  all  the  means  which 
would  be  in  his  hands ;  and  that,  in  concert  with  this 
colleague  in  authority,  he  was  expected  to  take  all  the 
measures  necessary  to  punish,  according  to  their  deserts, 
those  who  had  opposed  the  exercise  of  the  authority 
conferred  upon  the  king's  commissary. 

One  of  the  articles  of  the  instructions  ran  thus : — 
"  Whereas  it  is  maintained  that  the  diseases  which  pre- 
vail in  New  Orleans  during  the  summer,  proceed  from 
the  want  of  air  and  from  the  city  being  smothered  by  . 
the  neighboring  woods,  which  press  so  close  around  it, 
it  shall  be  the  care  of  M.  Perier  to  have  them  cut 
down,  as  far  as  Lake  Pontchartrain."  This  paragraph 
shows  two  things: — 1.  That,  at  that  remote  time,  the 
summer  was  a  sickly  season  in  New  Orleans,  as  it  is  to 
this  day ;  and  2.  That  to  make  it  more  healthy,  the 
government  was,  as  far  back  as  1726,  struck  with  the 
necessity  of  an  improvement  which,  for  many  years 
past,  has  in  vain  been  urged  upon  the  public  authorities 
of  New  Orleans.  To  procure  to  this  city  a  free  and 
pure  ventilation  from  Lake  Pontchartrain,  there  re- 
mains to  be  removed  only  a  thin  curtain  of  wood,  which 
might  soon  be  withdrawn ;  and  there  being  no  other 
impediment  to  prevent  a  mutual  exchange  of  breezes 
between  the  Mississippi  and  the  lake,  gentle  drafts  of 
invigorating  air  would  daily  sweep  through  our  streets, 
and  make  of  New  Orleans,  during  the  summer,  the 
safest  and  most  agreeable  urban  residence  in  the  Union. 
When  it  should  be  once  known  that  New  Orleans  is  as 
much  blessed  with  health  as  any  other  part  of  these 
United  States,  its  rapid  aggrandizement  would  be  al- 
most without  limits,  and  it  would,  with  the  advantages 
it  possesses,  become  at  once  the  pride  and  the  wonder 
of  the  American  continent.  In  1844,  under  the  admin- 


874  PERIER'S  INSTRUCTIONS. 

istration  of  Governor  Mouton,  this  enlightened  chief 
magistrate  of  the  state  of  Louisiana  proposed  to  the 
mayor  of  the  city,  to  put  at  his  disposal  from  eighty  to 
one  hundred  black  convicts,  sentenced  to  hard  labor, 
on  condition  that  they  should  be  employed  by  the  mu- 
nicipal councils  of  New  Orleans,  in  cutting  down  the 
forest  which  lies  between  the  lake  and  New  Orleans, 
and  on  condition  that,  during  that  time,  they  should  be 
fed  and  clothed  at  the  expense  of  the  city.  This  libe- 
ral offer  was  not  accepted  for  some  futile  causes,  and  a 
very  important  public  improvement  was  indefinitely 
delayed.  But  he  who  studies  some  of  the  designs  of 
Providence,  as  they  are  stamped  on  the  map  of  the 
world,  can  see,  however  feeble  his  vision  may  be,  that 
it  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  apathy,  the  stupidity,  or  the 
malice  of  man,  materially  to  affect  the  destinies  which 
are  in  store  for  the  noble  city  now  rising  so  proudly 
on  the  bank  of  the  mighty  father  of  rivers  in  the 
Egypt  of  the  New  World.  Time  will  do  all  that  is 
necessary — time !  that  great  destroyer  and  beautifier 
of  things ! 

"  Hsec  igitur  formam  crescendo  mutat,  et  olim 
Immensi  caput  orbis  erit.     Sic  dicere  vates.  OVID. 

In  another  article  of  the  instructions,  the  company 
impressed  upon  Perier's  mind  the  importance  of  his 
visiting,  as  soon  as  possible  after  his  arrival  in  Louisi- 
ana, the  powerful  tribe  of  the  Natchez,  in  order  to  be- 
come well  acquainted  with  their  dispositions,  and  the 
nature  of  their  relations  with  the  neighboring  French 
settlement,  to  which  it  was  the  intention  of  the  com- 
pany to  give  as  full  a  development  as  it  was  susceptible 
of.  He  was  informed  that  the  Natchez  had  three  im- 
portant villages  in  close  contiguity  with  the  French  set- 
tlement ;  which  circumstance  had  been  and  was  ex- 


VALDETERRE'S  DESCRIPTION  OF  LOUISIANA  IN  1726.       375 

pected  to  be  the  cause  of  incessant  misunderstandings 
and  quarrels ;  and  that  it  was  the  desire  of  the  com- 
pany that  he  should  look  into  this  state  of  things,  and 
that,  if  he  should  be  of  opinion,  after  a  thorough  in- 
vestigation, that  there  was  danger  .in  keeping  so  close 
together  two  antagonistic  races,  then  to  tender  to  the 
Natchez  chiefs,  presents  sufficiently  persuasive  to  induce 
them  to  remove  farther.  These  instructions,  which,  no 
doubt,  became  known  to  the  French  settlers,  and  leaked 
out  among  the  Indians,  and  the  feelings  and  acts  to 
which  they  must  have  given  rise,  were  probably  one 
of  the  main  causes  that  produced  the  horrible  tragedy 
which  marked  with  letters  of  blood  the  annals  of  Lou- 
isiana in  1729. 

The  new  governor,  Perier,  had,  when  accepting  his 
office,  undertaken  a  task  which,  to  be  performed  with 
credit  to  himself  and  to  the  India  Company,  required 
capacities  of  mind  and  soul  of  no  inferior  order ;  for,  he 
had  to  contend  with  difficulties,  for  which  mediocrity 
was  no  match.  To  appreciate  his  position,  it  is  sufficient 
to  read  the  description  which  Drouot  de  Valdeterre, 
who  had  commanded  at  Dauphine  Island  and  Biloxi, 
gives  of  the  colony  in  1726. 

"  The  inhabitants  of  this  country,"  said  he,  "  whose 
establishment  in  it  is  of  such  recent  date,  not  being 
governed  in  the  name  of  his  majesty,  but  in  that  of  the 
company,  have  become  republicans  in  their  thoughts, 
feelings,  and  manners,  and  they  consider  themselves  as 
free  from  the  allegiance  due  to  a  lawful  sovereign. 
The  troops  are  without  discipline  and  subordination, 
without  arms  and  ammunition,  most  of  the  time,  without 
clothing,  and  they  are  frequently  obliged  to  seek  for 
their  food  among  the  Indian  tribes.  There  are  no  forts 
for  their  protection ;  no  places  of  refuge  for  them  in 
cases  of  attack.  The  guns  and  other  implements  of 


376  SPIRIT  OF  REPUBLICANISM  IN  THE  COLONY. 

war  are  buried  in  sand  and  abandoned ;  the  ware- 
houses are  unroofed ;  the  merchandise,  goods,  and  pro- 
visions are  damaged  or  completely  spoiled;  the  com- 
pany as  well  as  the  colonists  are  plundered  without 
mercy  and  restraint ;  revolts  and  desertions  among  the 
troops  are  authorized  and  sanctioned ;  incendiaries  who, 
for  the  purpose  of  pillage,  commit  to  the  flames  whole 
camps,  posts,  settlements,  and  warehouses,  remain  un- 
punished ;  prisoners  of  war  are  forced  to  become  sailors 
in  the  service  of  the  company,  and  by  culpable  negli- 
gence or  connivance  they  are  allowed  to  run  away  with 
ships  loaded  with  merchandise ;  other  vessels  are  will- 
fully stranded  or  wrecked,  and  their  cargoes  are  lost  to 
their  owners ;  forgers,  robbers,  and  murderers  are  se- 
cure of  impunity.  In  short,  this  is  a  country  which,  to 
the  shame  of  France  be  it  said,  is  without  religion, 
without  justice,  without  discipline,  without  order,  and 
without  police."  What  a  picture !  It  wants  no  finish- 
ing stroke. 

In  this  energetic  enumeration  of  the  imperfections  of 
the  colony  at  the  time,  there  is  one  thing  which  is  de- 
serving of  notice.  It  is  the  innate  spirit  of  republican- 
ism which  stuck  to  it  from  its  origin :  a  spirit,  of  which 
Governor  Cadillac  complained  so  bitterly  in  IT  IT,  and 
which,  in  1726,  was  not  much  more  to  the  taste  of  Dro- 
uot  de  Valdeterre. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  company  itself  was  the 
first,  in  some  instances,  to  give  bad  examples  by  the 
violation  of  contracts  and  of  the  laws  of  morality  and 
justice.  Thus,  on  the  31st  of  October,  the  Council  of 
State,  at  the  instigation  of  the  company,  issued  an  ordi- 
nance decreeing  that  all  creditors  should  accept  in 
satisfaction  of  their  claims,  and  that  all  holders  of  prom- 
issory notes  and  letters  of  credit  should  receive  in 
payment  of  those  obligations  (any  contrary  stipulations 


ARRIVAL  OF  THE  URSULINE  NUNS.  377 

notwithstanding)  the  copper  currency  which  had  been 
introduced  in  the  colony,  and  for  the  value  affixed  to 
it,  instead  of  Spanish  dollars  or  other  Spanish  coin. 
Any  person  violating  this  ordinance  was  declared  to  be 
guilty  of  peculation  or  extortion,  sentenced  to  pay  a 
fine  of  three  hundred  livres,  one  half  of  which  for  the 
benefit  of  the  informer,  and  the  other  for  the  relief  of 
the  charity  hospital,  and  further  to  be  whipped  and 
branded  by  the  public  executioner.  The  Spanish  dol- 
lars or  coin  paid  in  violation  of  this  edict  were  confis- 
cated on  behalf  of  the  government. 

Nothing  could  have  justified  this  violent  interference 
with  private  contracts  ;  and  it  seems  to  us,  modified  as 
we  are  by  the  political  atmosphere  we  live  in,  that  those 
who  framed  and  issued  the  ordinance  we  have  men- 
tioned, were  much  more  deserving  of  the  hangman's 
whip  and  brand  than  those  who,  in  conformity  with 
their  pledged  faith  in  contracts  which  were  lawful  at 
the  time  they  were  made,  would  have  disregarded  and 
disobeyed  such  retrospective  and  barbarous  legislation. 

Beyond  this  act  of  arbitrary  and  unjust  legislation, 
nothing  else  marked  the  close  of  the  year  1726,  which 
had  winged  its  flight  over  the  colony  without  having 
dropped  from  its  pinions  one  feather  which  Louisiana 
might  have  added  to  her  stores  of  acquisitions  and 
prosperity.  For  her  there  had  been  no  progress. 
Time  and  the  world  had  stood  still. 

In  1727,  some  Ursuline  nuns  and  some  Jesuits,  in 
conformity  with  a  contract,  which,  in  the  preceding 
year,  they  had  passed  with  the  India  Company,  came 
to  Louisiana,  where  they  were  to  reside  permanently. 
The  Ursulines  were  seven  in  number,  and  were  to  take 
charge  of  the  charity  hospital  in  New  Orleans.  Ac- 
cording to  previous  stipulations,  they  were  transported 
at  the  cost  of  the  company  with  four  servants,  and  they 


3<S  HISTORY  OF  THE  URSULINE  NUNS. 

had  received  each,  before  their  departure,  as  a  gratuity, 
the  sum  of  five  hundred  livres.  They  were  immedi- 
ately put  in  possession  of  the  hospital,  in  which  they 
were  to  reside  until  a  more  convenient  dwelling  should 
"be  built  up  for  them.  The  company  was  to  concede  to 
the  hospital  a  lot  of  ground  measuring  eight  acres, 
fronting  on  the  Mississippi  by  the  usual  depth  of  forty. 
The  object  of  this  concession  was  the  establishment  of  a 
plantation,  capable  of  supplying  the  wants  of  the  Ursu- 
lines,  and  of  affording  to  them  a  sufficient  remuneration 
for  their  services  in  the  hospital.  Those  eight  acres 
were  to  be  located  as  near  New  Orleans  as  possible. 
Each  of  the  nuns  was  to  receive  six  hundred  livres  a 
year,  until  their  plantation  should  be  in  full  cultivation, 
or  during  five  years  after  they  should  have  been  fur- 
nished by  the  company  with  eight  negroes,  on  the  or- 
dinary conditions  on  which  they  were  sold  to  the  colo- 
nists. It  was  expressly  stipulated,  that  if  the  nuns 
ceased  to  serve  in  the  hospital  as  agreed  upon,  they  would 
forfeit  their  plantation  and  the  immovables  attached 
to  the  hospital,  and  would  retain  only  the  negroes  and 
other  movables. 

An  edifice,  which  is  still  in  existence,  was  constructed, 
for  their  use  on  Conde-street,  between  Barracks  and 
Hospital  streets.  They  took  possession  of  it  in  1730, 
when  it  was  completed,  and  they  continued  to  occupy 
it  until  1824,  when  they  moved  to  a  more  splendid  and 
more  spacious  convent,  which  they  had  caused  %to  be 
built,  three  miles  below  the  city,  on  the  bank  of  the 
river.  After  the  State  House  had  been  burnt  in  New 
Orleans,  the  Legislature  sat  in  the  old  convent,  and  in 
1831,  its  sacred  walls,  one  century  after  they  had 
pealed  for  the  first  time  with  holy  anthems,  and  had 
heard  soft  prayers  whispered  to  the  sweet  Virgin  Mary, 
were  converted  to  purposes  of  legislation,  and  resounded 


REFLECTIONS  ON  RELIGIOUS  ASSOCIATIONS.  379 

with  fierce  oratorical  debates.  It  has  since  resumed  a 
character  more  consonant  with  its  original  destination, 
and  has  become  the  bishop's  palace. 

Such  is  the  humble  origin  of  one  of  the  wealthiest 
religious  corporations  of  the  state.  The  Ursulines  have 
long  ceased  to  be  connected  with  the  charity  hospital, 
and  have  established  a  convent  for  the  education  of 
females.  Heaven  has  ever  after  favored  them  with 
uninterrupted  prosperity,  and  so  far,  has  spared  them 
those  trials  and  vicissitudes  which  are  the  common  lot 
of  the  human  race.  In  a  country  where  all  the  laws 
counteract  the  permanent  accumulation  of  wealth  in 
private  hands,  and  also  where  lay  corporations  of  every 
sort  invariably  run  into  debt  and  end  in  bankruptcy, 
the  history  of  these  Ursuline  nuns  is  a  remarkable  dem- 
onstration of  the  vitality,  and  of  the  spirit  of  preserva- 
tion and  of  acquisition  inherent  to  religious  Catholic 
associations.  It  is  undeniable  that,  to  husband  the 
terrestrial  resources  of  the  world,  and  to  make  the  most 
of  them,  no  individuals  nor  set  of  people  are  to  be 
compared  with  those  who  deal  in  religious  spirituality, 
and  whose  minds  are  fraught  with  thoughts  celestial. 
Parched  deserts,  where  it  seemed  that  none  but  the  sala- 
mander could  live,  have  smiled  at  the  command  of  monks, 
and  have  become  the  delightful  habitations  of  man. 
There,  stupendous  buildings  have  been  erected  in  the 
very  bosom  of  sterility,  refreshing  waters  have  gushed 
from  the  burning  sand,  luxuriant  gardens  have  sprung 
into  existence,  the  hot  breeze  has  been  made  sweet 
with  perfumes,  and  the  gorgeous  display  of  opulence 
has  astonished  the  pilgrim  or  the  inquisitive  traveler, 
in  places  which  looked  as  if  consecrated  by  nature  to 
solitude  and  to  famine.  On  how  many  craggy  sides  of 
desolate  mountains,  where  the  goat  itself  could  hardly 
find  scanty  food,  have  comfortable  human  abodes  been 


380  THE  JESUITS. 

raised,  and  flourishing  institutions  been  established 
under  the  magic  spell  of  religious  association !  Reli- 
gious association  !  It  gives  even  to  woman  the  strength 
of  a  giant.  There  is  in  it  consolidation,  duration,  infi- 
nite power,  and  almost  ubiquity  of  influence.  Truly, 
it  is  no  transient  bauble,  as  so  many  of  our  political 
or  other  worldly  institutions,  but  it  is  something  to 
study  and  to  admire.  Its  granite  organization  inspires 
me  with  a  respect  which  discourages  censure,  and  I  feel 
little  disposed  to  analyze  the  good  or  the  evil  it  has 
produced,  and  to  indulge  in  a  philosophical  examina- 
tion of  its  bearings  on  the  destinies  of  nations,  and  in  a 
prophetic  anticipation  of  its  future  doings.  To  pyra- 
mids, the  grandeur  of  which  awes  my  sight,  I  bow  with 
that  innate  love  I  feel  in  my  soul  for  the  stupendous, 
without  enquiring,  or  caring  perhaps,  whether  harvests 
profitable  to  mankind,  or  rank  weeds,  will  grow  within 
reach  of  their  lengthened  shadows. 

These  reflections  lead  me  by  an  easy  transition  to  the 
Jesuits,  who  landed  in  Louisiana  at  the  same  time  with 
the  Ursulines.  The  Superior  of  the  company  of  the 
Louisiana  Jesuits  was  to  reside  in  New  Orleans,  but 
could  not  exercise  therein  any  ecclesiastical  functions, 
without  the  permission  of  the  Superior  of  the  Capu- 
chins, under  whose  spiritual  jurisdiction  New  Orleans 
happened  to  be  placed.  The  Jesuits  had  been  trans- 
ported to  the  colony  at  the  cost  of  the  company ;  before 
their  departure,  and  as  a  gratuity,  each  one  received  150 
livres ;  during  the  first  two  years  of  their  residence  in 
Louisiana,  they  were  to  be  paid  severally  at  the  rate  of 
800  livres  annually,  and,  afterward,  that  salary  was  to 
be  reduced  to  600  livres.  A  concession  of  eight  acres  of 
land,  fronting  on  the  river,  with  the  usual  depth,  was 
made  to  them  in  the  neighborhood  of  New  Orleans, 
and  they  long  dwelt  on  a  plantation,  a  little  above 


DESCRIPTION  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  IN  1727.  381 

Canal-street,  in  that  part  of  the  city  which  is  now  called 
the  second  municipality.  A  house  and  chapel  were 
constructed  for  them,  and  they  soon  became  as  power- 
ful in  Louisiana,  as  they  are  destined  to  be  wherever 
they  may  have  a  footing.  Thus  New  Orleans  was 
handsomely  provided  with  spiritual  protection,  being 
flanked,  on  the  left,  with  the  Ursulines,  and  on  the 
right,  with  the  Jesuits. 

In  the  beginning  of  IT 2 7,  the  spot  where  now  stands 
New  Orleans,  not  being  protected  by  a  levee,  was  sub- 
ject to  annual  inundations,  and  presented  no  better  as- 
pect than  that  of  a  vast  sink  or  sewer.  The  waters  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  of  Lake  I^ontchartrain,  met  at  a 
ridge  of  high  land,  which,  by  their  common  deposits, 
they  had  formed  between  Bayou  St.  John  and  New 
Orleans,  and  which  was  since  called  the  Lepers'  ttuff. 
The  whole  city  was  surrounded  by  a  large  ditch,  and 
fenced  in  with  sharp  stakes  wedged  close  together. 
For  the  purposes  of  draining,  a  ditch  ran  along  the  four 
sides  of  every  square  of  the  city,  and  every  lot  in  every 
square  was  also  ditched  all  round,  causing  New  Orleans 
to  look  very  much  like  a  microscopic  caricature  of 
Venice.  Mosquitoes  buzzed,  and  enormous  frogs  croak- 
ed incessantly  in  concert  with  other  indescribable 
sounds ;  tall  reeds,  and  grass  of  every  variety,  grew  in 
the  streets  and  in  the  yards,  so  as  to  interrupt  all  com- 
munication, and  offered  a  safe  retreat,  and  places  of 
concealment  to  venomous  reptiles,  wild  beasts,  and 
malefactors,  who,  protected  by  these  impenetrable 
jungles,  committed  with  impunity  all  sorts  of  evil 
deeds.  It  provoked  a  proclamation  from  Rossard,  the 
inspector  of  police,  who  complained  bitterly  of  the  over- 
stretched  obstinacy  with  which,  in  spite  of  repeated  ad- 
monitions, the  inhabitants  of  New  Orleans  persisted  in 
abstaining  from  removing  such  nuisances,  and  therefore 


382  FIRST  ACTS  OF  PERIER'S  ADMINISTATIOK 

he  threatened  them  with  condign  punishment.  It  is 
pleasing  to  the  imagination,  to  compare  the  past  with 
the  present,  the  hay  standards  of  primitive  Kome  with 
the  gold  eagles  which  spread  their  wings  in  front  of  the 
legions  of  Caesar. 

Governor  Perier  signalized  the  beginning  of  his  ad- 
ministration by  some  improvements  of  an  important 
nature.  On  the  15th  of  November,  he  had  completed 
in  front  of  New  Orleans  a  levee,  of  eighteen  hundred 
yards  in  length,  and  so  broad  that  its  summit  meas- 
ured eighteen  feet  in  width.  This  same  levee,  although 
considerably  reduced  in  its  proportions,  he  caused  to  be 
continued  eighteen  mil^s  on  both  sides  of  the  city, 
above  and  below.  He  announced  to  the  company,  that 
he  would  soon  undertake  to  cut  a  canal  from  New 
Orleans  to  Bayou  St.  John,  in  order  to  open  a  commu- 
nication with  the  sea  through  the  lakes,  and  he  men- 
tioned the  arrangements  which  he  had  made  with  the 
inhabitants  in  relation  to  the  negroes  they  were  to  fur- 
nish for  the  execution  of  this  work,  which  was  actually 
begun,  but  to  which  subsequent  events  put  a  stop. 
Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  plan  of  the  canal  which  now 
bears  the  name  of  Carondelet,  did  not  originate  with 
that  Spanish  governor. 

The  English,  being  at  war  with  the  Spaniards,  were 
intriguing  among  the  Indians,  to  set  them  against  their 
enemies,  and  at  their  instigation,  the  Talapouches  had 
besieged  Pensacola.  But  Governor  Perier  having  sent 
them  word  that,  if  they  did  not  retire,  he  would  cause 
them  to  be  attacked  by  the  Choctaws,  they  obeyed  his 
summons.  He  also  gave  to  the  Spaniards  all  the  indi- 
rect and  secret  aid  that  he  could,  and  he  devoted  much 
time  and  intrigues,  to  exciting  a  feeling  of  hostility 
among  all  the  Indian  nations  against  the  English. 
Running  up  the  Mississippi,  he  put  an  end  to  several 


THE  MYSTERIOUS  MUSIC  AT  PASCAGOULA.  383 

puny  wars  which  existed  between  small  Indian  tribes 
from  the  Arkansas  to  the  Balize,  so  that  during  the 
year  1727,  an  almost  unprecedented  tranquillity  pre- 
vailed in  the  colony.  He  caused  a  census  to  be  made 
of  the  negroes,  and  found  that  population  amounting  to 
2600  souls:  the  whites  hardly  exceeded  that  number. 
Insignificant  as  this  infant  colony  was,  its  expenses  of 
administration,  this  year,  rose  to  453,728  livres,  which, 
considering  the  comparative  value  of  the  precious 
metals,  was  at  least  equivalent  to  three  times  that  sum 
in  our  days. 

On  the  29th  of  July,  the  Council  of  State  in  France, 
for  reasons  unknown  to  us,  but  which  we  must  suppose 
to  have  been  weighty  at  the  tiine,  promulgated  a  de- 
cree, putting  in  force  in  Louisiana  an  old  edict  of  Henry 
Hd,  which  made  it  a  capital  crime  for  unmarried  wo- 
men to  conceal  their  pregnancy.  This  legislative  act 
was  received  in  the  colony  with  exceedingly  marked 
signs  of  displeasure ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that,  on  ac- 
count of  its  severity,  it  never  was  carried  into  execution 
if  any  case  ever  called  for  its  application. 

During  that  summer,  Governor  Perier,  leaving  New 
Orleans,  visited  the  first  settlements  of  the  French  at 
the  Bay  of  St.  Louis,  at  Biloxi,  Pascagoula,  and  Mobile. 
While  among  the  Pascagoulas,  or  bread-eaters,  he  was 
invited  to  go  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  of  that  name, 
to  listen  to  the  mysterious  music  which  floats  on  the 
waters,  particularly  on  a  calm,  moonlight  night,  and 
which,  to  this  day,  excites  the  wonder  of  visitors.  It 
seems  to  issue  from  caverns  or  grottoes  in  the  bed  of 
the  river,  and  sometimes  ascends  from  the  water  un- 
der the  very  keel  of  the  boat  which  contains  the  in- 
quisitive traveler,  whose  ear  it  strikes  as  the  distant 
concert  of  a  thousand  Eolian  harps.  On  the  banks  of 
the  river,  close  by  the  spot  where  the  music  is  heard, 


384  LEGEND  OF  THE 

tradition  says  that  there  existed  a  tribe  different  in 
color  and  in  other  peculiarities  from  the  rest  of  the  In- 
dians. Their  ancestors  had  originally  emerged  from 
the  sea,  where  they  were  born,  and  were  of  a  light  com- 
plexion. They  were  a  gentle,  gay,  inoffensive  race,  liv- 
ing chiefly  on  oysters  and  fish,  and  they  passed  their 
time  in  festivals  and  rejoicings.  They  had  a  temple  in 
which  they  adored  a  mermaid.  Every  night  when  the 
moon  was  visible,  they  gathered  round  the  beautifully 
carved  figure  of  the  mermaid,  and  with  instruments  of 
strange  shape,  worshiped  that  idol  Avith  such  soul-stir- 
ring music,  as  had  never  before  blessed  human  ears. 

One  day,  a  short  time  after  the  destruction  of  Mau- 
vila,  or  Mobile,  in  1539,  by  Soto  and  his  companions, 
there  appeared  among  them  a  white  man,  with  a  long 
gray  beard,  flowing  garments,  and  a  large  cross  in  his 
right  hand.  He  drew  from  his  bosom  a  book,  which 
he  kissed  reverentially,  and  he  began  to  explain  to  them 
what  was  contained  in  that  sacred  little  casket.  Tradi- 
tion does  not  say  how  he  came  suddenly  to  acquire  the 
language  of  those  people,  when  he  attempted  to  com- 
municate to  them  the  solemn  truths  of  the  gospel.  It 
must  have  been  by  the  operation  of  that  faith  which, 
we  are  authoritatively  told,  will  remove  mountains. 
Be  it  as  it  may,  the  holy  man,  in  the  course  of  a  few 
months,  was  proceeding  with  much  success  in  his  pious 
undertaking,  and  the  wrork  of  conversion  was  going  on 
bravely,  when  his  purposes  were  defeated  by  an  awful 
prodigy. 

One  night,  when  the  moon  at  her  zenith  poured  on 
heaven  and  earth,  with  more  profusion  than  usual,  a 
flood  of  light  angelic,  at  the  solemn  hour  of  twelve, 
when  all  in  nature  was  repose  and  silence,  there  came, 
on  a  sudden,  a  rushing  on  the  surface  of  the  river,  as  if 
the  still  air  had  been  flapped  into  a  whirlwind  by  myr- 


MYSTERIOUS  MUSIC  AT  PASCAGOULA.  385 

iads  of  invisible  wings  sweeping  onward.  The  pla- 
cid water  was  immediately  convulsed ;  uttering  a  deep 
groan,  it  rolled  several  times  from  one  bank  to  the 
other  with  rapid  oscillations,  and  then  gathered  it- 
self up  into  a  towering  column  of  foaming  waves,  on  the 
top  of  which  stood  a  mermaid,  looking  with  magnetic 
eyes  that  could  draw  almost  every  thing  to  her,  and 
singing  with  a  voice  which  fascinated  into  madness. 
The  Indians  and  the  priest,  their  new  guest,  rushed  to 
the  bank  of  the  river  to  contemplate  this  supernatural 
spectacle.  When  she  (saw  them,  the  mermaid  tuned 
her  tones  into  still  more  bewitching  melody,  and  kept 
chanting  a  sort  of  mystic  song,  with  this  often  repeated 
ditty:— 

"  Come  to  me,  come  to  me,  children'of  the  sea, 
Neither  bell,  book,  nor  cross  shall  win  ye  from  your  queen." 

The  Indians  listened  with  growing  ecstasy,  and  one 
of  them  plunged  into  the  river  to  rise  no  more.  The  -'* 
rest,  men,  women,  and  children,  followed  in  quick  suc- 
cession, moved,  as  it  were,  with  the  same  irresistible  im- 
pulse. When  the  last  of  the  race  disappeared,  a  wild 
laugh  of  exultation  was  heard ;  down  returned  the  liver 
to  its  bed  with  the  roar  of  a  cataract,  and  the  whole 
scene  seemed  to  have  been  but  a  dream.  Ever  since 
that  time,  is  heard  occasionally  the  distant  music  which 
has  excited  so  much  attention  and  investigation.  The 
other  Indian  tribes  of  the  neighborhood  have  always 
thought  that  it  was  their  musical  brethren,  who  still 
keep  up  their  revels  at  the  bottom  of  the  river,  in  the 
palace  of  the  mermaid.  Tradition  further  relates  that 
the  poor  priest  died  in  an  agony  of  grief,  and  that  he  at- 
tributed this  awful  event,  and  this  victory  of  the  powers 
of  darkness,  to  his  not  having  been  in  a  perfect  state  of 
grace  when  he  attempted  the  conversion  of  those  infi- 

z 


386  THE  LEGEND  OF 

dels.  It  is  believed  also  that  lie  said  on  his  death-bed, 
that  those  deluded  pagan  souls  would  be  redeemed  from 
their  bondage  and  sent  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  if  on 
a  Christmas  night,  at  twelve  of  the  clock,  when  the 
moon  shall  happen  to  be  at  her  meridian,  a  priest  should 
dare  to  come  alone  to  that  musical  spot,  in  a  boat  pro- 
pelled by  himself,  and  should  drop  a  crucifix  into  the 
water.  But,  alas !  if  this  be  ever  done,  neither  the  holy 
man  nor  the  boat  are  to  be  seen  again  by  mortal  eyes- 
So  far,  the  attempt  has  not  been  made ;  sceptic  minds 
have  sneered,  but  no  one  has  been  found  bold  enough 
to  try  the  experiment. 

Since  I  am  dealing  in  traditionary  lore,  I  may  as  well 
close  this  lecture  with  another  legend,  which,  when  I 
was  a  boy,  thirt}7"  years  ago,  a  man  of  eighty  related  to 
me,  as  having  been  handed  down  to  him  by  his  father. 

In  a  lot  situated  at  the  corner  of  Orleans  and  Dau- 
phine  streets,  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  there  is  a  tree 
which  nobody  looks  at  without  curiosity  and  without 
wondering  how,  it  came  there.  For  a  long  time,  it  was 
the  only  one  of  its  kind  known  in  the  state,  and  from 
its  isolated  position,  it  has  always  been  cursed  with 
sterility.  It  reminds  one  of  the  warm  climes  of  Africa 
or  Asia,  and  wears  the  aspect  of  a  stranger  of  distinc- 
tion driven  from  his  native  country.  Indeed,  with  its 
sharp  and  thin  foliage,  sighing  mournfully  under  the 
blast  of  one  of  our  November  northern  winds,  it  looks 
as  sorrowful  as  an  exile.  Its  enormous  trunk  is  nothing 
but  an  agglomeration  of  knots  and  bumps,  which  each 
passing  year  seems  to  have  deposited  there  as  a  mark 
of  age,  and  as  a  .protection  against  the  blows  of  time 
and  of  the  world.  Inquire  for  its  origin,  and  every  one 
will  tell  you  that  it  has  stood  there  from  time  immemo- 
rial. A  sort  of  vague  but  impressive  mystery  is  at- 
tached to  it,  and  it  is  as  superstitiously  respected  as  one 


THE  DATE-TREE.  387 

of  the  old  oaks  of  Dodona,  Bold  would  be  the  axe  that 
should  strike  the  first  blow  at  that  foreign  patriarch ; 
and  if  it  were  prostrated  to  the  ground  by  a  profane 
hand,  what  native  of  the  city  would  not  mourn  over  its 
fall,  and  brand  the  act  as  an  unnatural  and  criminal 
deed  ?  So,  long  live  the  date-tree  of  Orleans-street — 
that  time-honored  descendant  of  Asiatic  ancestors ! 

In  the  beginning  of  172*7,  a  French  vessel  of  war 
landed  at  New  Orleans  a  man  of  haughty  mien,  who 
wore  the  Turkish  dress,  and  whose  whole  attendance 
was  a  single  servant.  He  was  received  by  the  governor 
with  the  highest  distinction,  and  was  conducted  by  him 
to  a  small  but  comfortable  house  with  a  pretty  garden, 
then  existing  at  the  corner  of  Orleans  and  Dauphine 
streets,  and  which,  from  the  circumstance  of  its  being 
so  distant  from  other  dwellings,  might  have  been  called 
a  rural  retreat,  although  situated  in  the  limits  of  the 
city.  There,  the  stranger,  who  was  understood  to  be 
a  prisoner  of  state,  lived  in  the  greatest  seclusion ; 
and  although  neither  he  nor  his  attendant  could  be 
guilty  of  indiscretion,  because  none  understood  their 
language,  and  although  Governor  Perier  severely  re- 
buked the  slightest  inquiry,  yet  it  seemed  to  be  the  set- 
tled conviction  in  Louisiana,  that  the  mysterious  stranger 
was  a  brother  of  the  Sultan,  or  some  great  personage 
of  the  Ottoman  empire,  who  had  fled  from  the  anger  of 
the  vicegerent  of  Mohammed,  and  who  had  taken  refuge 
in  France.  The  Sultan  had  peremptorily  demanded  the 
fugitive,  and  the  French  government,  thinking  it  de- 
rogatory to  its  dignity  to  comply  with  that  request,  but 
at  the  same  time  not  wishing  to  expose  its  friendly  re- 
lations with  the  Moslem  monarch,  and  perhaps  desir- 
ing, for  political  purposes,  to  keep  in  hostage  the  impor- 
tant guest  it  had  in  its  hands,  had  recourse  to  the 
expedient  of  answering,  that  he  had  fled  to  Louisiana, 


388  THE  LEGEND  OF 

which,  was  so  distant  a  country  that  it  might  be  looked 
upon  as  the  grave,  where,  as  it  was  suggested,  the  fugi- 
tive might  be  suffered  to  wait  in  peace  for  actual  death, 
without  danger  or  offense  to  the  Sultan.  Whether  this 
story  be  true  or  not  is  now  a  matter  of  so  little  conse- 
quence, that  it  would  not  repay  the  trouble  of  a  strict 
historical  investigation. 

The  year  1727  was  drawing  to  its  close,  when  on  a 
dark,  stormy  night,  the  howling  and  barking  of  the 
numerous  dogs  in  the  streets  of  New  Orleans  were  ob- 
served to  be  fiercer  than  usual,  and  some  of  that  class  of 
individuals  who  pretend  to  know  every  thing,  declared 
that,  by  the  vivid  flashes  of  the  lightning,  they  had  seen, 
swiftly  and  stealthily  gliding  toward  the  residence  of 
the  unknown,  a  body  of  men  who  wore  the  scowling  ap- 
pearance of  malefactors  and  ministers  of  blood.  There 
afterward  came  also  a  report,that  a  piratical-looking  Turk- 
ish vessel  had  been  hovering  a  few  days  previous  in  the 
bay  of  Barataria.  Be  it  as  it  may,  on  the  next  morn- 
ing the  house  of  the  stranger  was  deserted.  There 
were  no  traces  of  mortal  struggle  to  be  seen ;  but  in  the 
garden,  the  earth  had  been  dug,  and  there  was  the  un- 
mistakable indication  of  a  recent  grave.  Soon,  how- 
ever, all  doubts  were  removed  by  the  finding  of  an  in- 
scription in  Arabic  characters,  engraved  on  a  marble 
tablet,  which  was  subsequently  sent  to  France.  It  ran 
thus :  "  The  justice  of  heaven  is  satisfied,  and  the  date- 
tree  shall  grow  on  the  traitor's  tomb.  The  sublime 
Emperor  of  the  faithful,  the  supporter  of  the  faith,  the 
omnipotent  master  and  Sultan  of  the  world,  has  re- 
deemed his  vow.  God  is  great,  and  Mohammed  is  his 
prophet.  Allah !"  Some  time  after  this  event,  a  for- 
eign-looking tree  was  seen  to  peep  out  of  the  spot  where 
a  corpse  must  have  been  deposited  in  that  stormy 
night,  when  the  rage  of  the  elements  yielded  to  the 


THE  DATE-TREK  389 

pitiless  fury  of  man,  and  it  thus  explained  in  some  de- 
gree this  part  of  the  inscription,  "  the  date-tree  shall 
grow  on  the  traitor's  grave." 

Who  was  he,  or  what  had  he  done,  who  had  pro- 
voked such  relentless  and  far-seeking  revenge?  Ask 
Nemesis,  or — at  that  hour  when  evil  spirits  are  allowed 
to  roam  over  the  earth,  and  magical  invocations  are 
made — go,  and  interrogate  the  tree  of  the  dead. 


FIFTH  LECTURE. 

ARRIVAL  OF  THE  CASKET  GIRLS — ROYAL  ORDINANCE  RELATIVE  TO  THE  CONCESSIONS 
OF  LANDS — MANNER  OF  SETTLING  THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FRENCHMEN  MARRIED  TO 
INDIAN  WOMEN — FRENCH  HUSBANDS — INDIAN  WIVES  —  HISTORY  OF  MADAME 
DUBOIS,  AN  INDIAN  SQUAW — CONSPIRACY  OF  THE  NATCHEZ  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH 
— MASSACRE  OF  THE  FRENCH  AT  NATCHEZ  IN  1729 — MASSACRE  OF  THE  FRENCH 
AT  THE  YAZOO  SETTLEMENT  IN  1730 — ATTACK  OF  THE  NATCHEZ  AGAINST  THK 
FRENCH  SETTLEMENT  AT  NATCHITOCHES — THEY  ARE  BEATEN  BY  ST.  DENIS — THE 
FRENCH  AND  CHOCTAWS  ATTACK  THE  NATCHEZ— DARING  AND  DEATH  OF  NAVARRE 

AND  OF  SOME  OF  HIS  COMPANIONS SlEGE.  OF  THE  NATCHEZ  FORTS Fl.IGHT  OF 

THE  NATCHEZ— CRUEL  TREATMENT  OF  NATCHEZ  PRISONERS  BY  GOVERNOR  PERIER 
— DESPERATION  OF  THE  NATCHEZ — THE  CHICKA$AWS  BRANT  AN  ASYLUM  TO  THE 
NATCHEZ — CONSPIRACY  OF  THE  BANBARA  .NEGROES — LIST  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL 
OFFICERS  IN  THE  COLONY  IN  1730. 

IN  the  beginning  of  1728,  there  came  a  vessel  of  the 
company  with  a  -considerable  number  of  young  girls, 
who  had  not  been  taken,  like  their  predecessors,  from 
houses  of  correction.  The  company  had  given  to  each 
of  them  a  casket  containing  some  articles  of  dress. 
From  that  circumstance,  they  became  known  in  the 
colony  under  the  nickname  of  the  "  filles  a  la  cassette," 
or  "  the  casket  girls."  The  Ursulines  were  requested 
to  take  care  of  them  until  they  should  be  provided 
with  suitable  husbands.  Subsequently,  it  became  a  mat- 
ter of  importance  in  the  colony  to  derive  one's  origin 
from  the  casket  girls,  rather  than  from  the  correction 
girls.  What  distinctions,  however  slim  they  may  be, 
will  not  be  eagerly  sought  after  by  human  pride  ? 

With  great  propriety,  Governor  Perier  turned  his 
attention  to  the  encouragement  of  the  agriculture  of 
the  country,  and  by  words  and  deeds  excited  the  colo- 


THE  LAW  OF  CONCESSIONS  ESTABLISHED.  391 

irists  to  draw  out  of  the  fertile  soil  on  which  they 
dwelt,  the  wealth  which  was  concealed  within  its 
bosom.  Rice,  tobacco,  and  indigo  were  cultivated  with 
success  by  the  two  thousand  six  hundred  negroes  who 
had  been  imported,  and  the  fig  and  orange  trees,  lately 
introduced,  were  thriving  everywhere,  and  ornament' 
ing  almost  every  garden.  Land  was  rising  in  value, 
and  as  surveys  had  been  carelessly  made,  limits  fixed  in 
a  very  loose  or  arbitrary  manner,  and  titles  of  property 
mostly  incomplete  from  negligence,  indifference,  or  from 
some  other  cause,  a  royal  ordinance,  in  order  to  check 
anticipated  lawsuits,  and  to  prevent  future  confusion, 
was  issued  on  the  10th  of  August,  1728,  and  declared: 

"  That  all  the  orders  of  concession  addressed,  before 
the  30th  of  December,  IT 2 3,  by  the  India  Company  in 
France,  to  its  directors  in  Louisiana,  if  not  as  yet  pre- 
sented to  said  directors  for  confirmation,  or  if  not  as  yet 
followed  by  the  possession  and  improvement  stipulated 
in  the  acts  of  concession,  were  null  and  void." 

In  obedience  to  this  ordinance,  every  landholder 
was  bound  to  show  his  titles  to  the  Superior  Council, 
within  a  specified  time,  and  to  designate  the  quantity 
of  land  he  claimed  and  had  cultivated,  under  the  pen- 
alty of  a  fine  of  1000  livres,  and  of  the  loss  of  the  con- 
ceded land,  which,  in  that  case,  should  escheat  to  the 
company. 

Every  concession  of  land  situated  on  both  sides  of 
the  Mississippi,  below  Manchac,  was  to  be  reduced  to 
twenty  acres,  fronting  on  the  river,  except  it  should  be 
-proved  that  a  greater  number  of  acres  was  under  culti- 
vation. 

The  depth  of  every  concession  was  to  vary  from  be- 
tween one  hundred  acres  and  one  hundred  and  twenty 
acres,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  locality. 

The  company  was  authorized  to  raise  a  tax  of  one 


392  SETTLEMENT  OF  SUCCESSIONS  OF  FRENCHMEN 

cent  for  every  acre,  cultivated  or  not,  and  of  five  livres 
for  every  slave.  The  revenue  arising  from  this  tax  was 
to  be  consecrated  to  the  building  of  churches  and  hos- 
pitals. 

The  expenses  of  the  colonial  administration  had  con- 
tinued to  be  very  great,  and  had  amounted,  this  year, 
to  486,051  livres. 

The  year  1729  dawned  on  the  colony  under  favora- 
ble auspices.  Through  the  harmonious  and  joint  ad- 
ministration of  Perier  and  De  la  Chaise,  tranquillity 
had  been  established  in  the  country,  which,  for  the  first 
time,  was  free  from  the  evils  produced  by  the  jealousies 
and  quarrels  of  the  governor,  and  of  the  king's  commis- 
saries. Unchecked  in  the  exercise  of  the  high  author- 
ity with  which  he  was  clothed,  De  la  Chaise  turned 
his  attention  to  the  jurisprudence  of  the  country,  and 
to  the  settling  of  disputes  and  juridical  conflicts  among 
the  inhabitants.  A  case  presented  itself,  in  which  he 
used  his  influence  much  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  colo- 
nists. Father  de  la  Vente,  the  bigoted  curate  of  Mo- 
bile, had  demanded  that  the  French  be  authorized  by 
the  government  to  take  Indian  wives.  This  demand 
had  been  opposed  by  the  governor,  Lamothe  Cadillac, 
and  the  king's  commissary,  Duclos.  The  government 
had  neither  sanctioned,  nor  actually  prohibited  such 
marriages,  but  had  merely  recommended  that  they  be 
discouraged  as  much  as  possible.  However,  the  church 
had  thought  differently,  and  consecrated  a  great  many 
alliances  of  that  kind.  It  was,  no  doubt,  very  correct, 
in  a  moral  point  of  view,  but  it  gave  rise  to  legal  diffi- 
culties. Thus,  on  the  death  of  French  husbands,  their 
Indian  wives  claimed,  according  to  the  customs  of  the 
Viscounty  of  Paris,  half  of  their  succession  :  and  if  they 
died  without  issue,  the  property  acquired  during  mar- 
riage went  to  the  Indian  heirs  of  the  wife  in  prefer- 


WITH  INDIAN  WIVES.  393 

ence  to  the  French  heirs  of  the  husband.  These  In- 
dian heirs  frequently  ran  away  with  what  was  left  by 
the  deceased,  and  it  was  next  to  an  impossibility  to 
force  them  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  succession,  and  to 
subject  them  to  the  observance  of  those  formalities  re- 
quired by,  and  inherent  to,  the  laws  of  succession.  The 
French  were  therefore  clamorous  to  prevent  Indian 
wives  from  enjoying  the  benefit  of  the  custom  of  Paris, 
and  they  urged  that,  to  deviate  from  it  in  such  cases, 
would  be  nothing  but  an  act  of  justice  and  of  sound 
policy,  on  the  ground  that  what  had  been  acquired  by 
the  French  should  remain  to  the  French,  and  not  go  to 
the  huts  of  barbarians,  who  were  their  enemies.  Taking 
these  complaints  into  consideration,  and  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  De  la  Chaise,  the  Superior  Council  de- 
creed that,  for  the  future,  on  the  death  of  a  French- 
man married  to  an  Indian  woman,  the  property  left  by 
the  deceased  should  be  administered,  if  there  were 
minor  children,  by  a  tutor,  and  if  there  were  none,  by 
a  curator  to  vacant  estates,  who  should  pay  annually  to 
the  widow  one  third  of  the  revenue  of  the  estate,  pro- 
vided that  this  pension  should  cease  in  case  she  return- 
ed to  dwell  among  her  tribe.  The  expenses  of  pre- 
serving from  deterioration,  and  of  keeping  up  the 
goods,  chattels,  and  movable  or  immovable  property 
of  the  succession,  were  to  be  at  the  charge  of  the  chil- 
dren, or  of  the  other  heirs. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  conduct  of  the  Indian  wives 
toward  their  French  husbands  was  not  such  as  to  en- 
title them  to  much  respect  or  sympathy,  and  adultery 
was  one  of  the  frequent  offenses  of  which  they  be- 
came guilty.  When  brought  into  the  society  of  the 
white  race,  it  seems  that  they  lost  those  qualities  which 
they  possessed  when  pursuing  the  savage  and  primitive 
life  of  their  ancestors,  and  on  the  other  hand,  they  ac- 


394:         VISIT  OF  TWELVE  ILLINOIS  INDIANS  TO  FRANCE. 

quired  none  of  the  virtues  and  blandishments  of  civili- 
zation. One  instance  in  support  of  this  assertion, 
among  many  others  which  might  be  cited,  will  be  suffi- 
cient. 

In  the  district  of  the  Illinois,  in  1720,  the  French  had 
built  a  fort,  and  were  living  in  good  intelligence  with 
the  Indians,  when  the  commander,  or  governor  of  the 
district,  no  doubt  with  the  intention  of  producing  a 
deep  impression  on  those  barbarians  by  the  sight  of  the 
number,  the  resources,  and  the  power  of  the  French  na- 
tion, undertook  to  induce  some  of  them  to  pay  a  visit 
to  the  Great  French  village  across  the  big  salt  lake.  He 
talked  so  much  about  the  marvelous  things  to  be  seen 
in  his  own  country,  that  he  persuaded  twelve  of  the  In- 
dians to  follow  him  to  France.  One  of  them  was  the 
daughter  of  the  chief  of  the  Illinois,  and  she  is  said  to 
have  been  the  paramour  of  the  governor.  That  officer, 
leaving  the  command  of  his  fort  to  his  lieutenant,  de- 
scended the  Mississippi  with  Jiis  twelve  Indian  attend- 
ants, and  a  sergeant  named  Dubois,  and  arrived  safely 
at  New  Orleans,  where  they  embarked  for  France. 
There,  they  were  conducted  to  Versailles,  introduced  at 
court,  and  presented  to  the  king,  as  a  sample  of  his  red 
subjects  in  Louisiana.  They  amused  the  elite  of  the 
aristocracy,  by  hunting  a  deer  in  the  Boi-s  de  Boulogne, 
according  to  the  Indian  fashion;  and  the  women,  par- 
ticularly the  daughter  of  the  chief  of  the  Illinois,  who 
was  beautiful,  were  caressed  and  petted  for  a  week  by 
duchesses  and  such  high-born  dames.  They  even  ap- 
peared on  the  floor  of  the  Italian  opera  in  Paris,  to 
perform  Indian  dances,  and  they  had  the  honor  of  being 
the  flitting  wonder  of  a  few  days.  The  Indian  princess 
was  converted  to  Christianity,  baptized  in  the  splendid 
gothic  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  with  great  pomp  and 
ceremony,  and  then  married  to  Sergeant  Dubois,  who, 


FORTUNES  OF  DUBOIS  AND  HIS  ILLINOIS  WIFE,          395 

in  consideration  of  this  distinguished  alliance,  was 
raised  by  the  king  to  the  rank  of  captain,  and  com- 
mander of  the  Illinois  District.  She  received  hand- 
some presents  from  the  ladies  of  the  court,  and  from  the 
king  himself.  Her  companions  were  not  forgotten,  and 
came  in  for  their  share  of  petticoats,  shining  blue  coats, 
and  cocked  hats  lined  with  gold.  They  were,  of 
course,  very  much  pleased  with  their  reception  by  their 
white  allies,  and  after  having  seen  every  thing,  and 
having  been  exhibited  to  every  body,  they  left  Paris 
and  Versailles,  to  return  to  their  distant  home,  and  de- 
parted in  high  glee  for  Lorient,  where  they  took  ship. 
With  regard  to  the  officer  who  had  brought  them  to 
France,  he  remained  in  his  native  country,  gave  up 
forever  all  thoughts  of  returning  to  Louisiana  and  to 
Indian  paramours,  and  married  a  rich  widow,  who,  like 
Desdemona,  had  loved  him  for  the  dangers  he  had 
passed,  among 

"  Cannibals  that  each  other  eat, 
The  anthropophagi,  and  men  whose  heads 
Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders." 

The  Indians,  when  they  arrived  at  New  Orleans,  were 
entertained  in  that  city  at  the  expense  of  the  India  Com- 
pany. They  were  also  supplied  with  boats  and  rowers, 
and  with  an  escort  of  soldiers,  and  thus  transported 
back  to  the  Illinois.  Great  were  the  rejoicings  among 
those  people,  who  had  long  thought  they  had  lost  some 
of  their  most  important  and  most  cherished  members. 
Dubois  took  possession  of  the  fort  as  the  commander  of 
the  district,  and  there  lived  for  a  short  time  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  power  and  peace.  His  wife,  however, 
used  to  pay'to  her  relations  among  her  tribe,  more  fre- 
quent visits  than  he  liked.  One  day,  she  helped  her 
people  to  surprise  the  fort,  and  Dubois  and  the  whole 
garrison  were  butchered  without  mercy.  Madame  Du- 


396  CHARACTER  OF  CHOPART. 

bois  then  renounced  Christianity,  stripped  herself  of  her 
cumbersome  French  dress,  and  returned  to  the  worship 
of  her  old  idols,  to  her  early  habits,  and  to  the  savage 
life  which,  it  seemed,  had  lost  in  her  eyes  none  of  its 
primitive  attractions.  So  much  for  the  attempt  to  tame 
lions  and  tigers ! 

Perier,  on  his  arrival  in  the  colony,  had  been  struck 
with  its  defenseless  situation,  and  with  the  necessity  of 
fortifying  the  distant  settlements.  He  had  made  fre- 
quent remonstrances  on  the  subject  to  the  company, 
and  had  solicited  an  additional  force  of  two  or  three 
hundred  men.  But  his  fears  were  treated  as  chimerical, 
and  his  motives  misunderstood.  It  was  thought  that, 
by  asking  for  more  troops,  his  intention  was  to  give 
more  importance  to  his  command,  and  to  engage  in 
some  war  in  order  to  display  military  talents.  But 
subsequent  events  justified  Perier's  apprehensions. 

In  1729,  the  French  settlement  at  Natchez  was  under 
the  command  of  an  officer  called  Chopart,  Chepart,  or 
Etcheparre.  He  was  rapacious,  haughty,  and  tyrannical, 
and  by  repeated  acts  of  oppression  and  injustice,  had 
made  himself  odious  to  those  over  whom  he  ruled.  One 
day,  he  ordered  a  subordinate  officer  to  be  put  in  irons 
without  cause.  The  officer,  who  was  no  other  than  Du- 
mont,  well  known  for  the  interesting  historical  memoirs 
he  has  left  on  Louisiana,  having  succeeded  in  escaping 
from  his  prison,  fled  to  New  Orleans,  and  laid  his  com- 
plaint before  Governor  Perier.  Chopart  was  summoned 
to  head-quarters,  tried  by  his  peers,  and  found  guilty  of 
an  abuse  of  power.  He  would  even  have  been  broken, 
if  pressing  and  powerful  solicitors  had  not  obtained  his 
pardon  from  Governor  Perier.  But  he  was  reinstated 
in  his  office,  only  on  condition  that  he  should  change 
his  conduct,  and  treat  those  under  him  with  more  jus- 
tice and  mildness. 


OPPEESSIVE  PROCEEDINGS  AGAINST  THE  NATCHEZ.     397 

Having  received  a  salutary  lesson,  Ghopart,  on  his 
return  to  Natchez,  acted  toward  the  white  population 
with  more-  reserve,  but  made  up  for  it  by  treating 
the  Indians  with  insolence  and  cruelty.  Acquainted, 
no  doubt,  with  the  instructions  given  to  Perier  by  the 
company,  and  in  which  the  wish  was  expressed  that  the 
Natchez,  to  prevent  further  collisions,  should  be  induced, 
if  possible,  to  remove  farther  off,  he  acted  accordingly, 
and  heaped  every  sort  of  outrage  and  insult  upon  that 
devoted  race,  to  force  them  to  abandon  the  spot  they 
had  occupied,  for  so  many  centuries.  Seeing  that  by 
such  means  he  did  not  obtain  the  object  he  had  in 
view,  he  went  still  further.  One  day,  he  summoned  to 
his  presence  the  Great  Sun,  and  told  that  chief  that  he, 
Chopart,  had  received  orders  from  Governor  Perier  to 
take  possession  of  the  beautiful  village  of  the  White 
Apple,  which  was  situated  six  miles  from  the  French 
fort,  and  there  to  establish  a  plantation,  and  to  con- 
struct certain  buildings ;  wherefore  it  was  necessary 
that  the  Natchez  should  remove  to  some  other  place, 
which  they  might  occupy  without  prejudice  to  the 
French.  This  intimation  was  given  in  an  abrupt  man- 
ner, without  the  slightest  attempt  at  conciliation.  It 
was  the  tone  of  an  eastern  despot,  speaking  to  a  slave. 
The  Great  Sun  looked  at  Chopart  with  a  composed  but 
inquisitive  eye,  and  said: — "Surely,  my  white  brother 
does  not  speak  in  earnest,  but  wishes  only  to  try  the 
fortitude  of  the  red  man.  Does  not  my  white  brother 
know  that  the  Natchez  have  lived  in  that  village  for 
more  years  than  there  are  hairs  in  the  twisted  lock 
which  hangs  from  the  top  of  my  head  to  my  waist?" 
"  Foolish  barbarian !"  exclaimed  the  French  officer, 
with  kindling  ire  and  fierce  contempt.  "  What  ties  of 
brotherhood  can  there  be  between  thy  race  and  mine  ? 
I  have  no  explanations  or  apology  to  give  to  such  as 


398  COUNCIL  OF  THE  NATCHEZ. 

thou.  It  is  sufficient  for  thee  to  know  that  I  obey  su- 
perior orders — obey  mine !" 

In  spite  of  the  habitual  command  of  an  Indian  over 
his  muscles  and  features,  and  his  aversion  to  any  demon- 
stration of  his  inward  feelings,  when  such  language  fell 
on  the  ears  of  the  Great  Sun,  his  eyes  flashed  and  his 
breast  heaved  up  with  emotion,  but  he  replied  with  a 
calm  voice :  "  Brother,  we  have  not  been  used  to  such 
treatment.  So  far,  the  French  have  taken  nothing  from 
us  by  force.  What  they  possess,  we  gave  freely,  or 
they  purchased.  Wishing  to  live  in  peace  with  thy  na- 
tion, I  say  to  thee :  We  have  other  lands  that  we  can 
spare — take  them  ! — can  we  do  more  ?  But,  as  to  the 
village  of  the  White  Apple,  leave  it  untouched  in  the 
hands  of  the  Natchez.  There  we  have  a  temple,  and 
there  the  bones  of  our  ancestors  have  slept  since  we 
came  to  dwell  on  the  bank  of  the  father  of  rivers." 
Chopart  listened  to  this  touching  appeal  with  an  ironi- 
cal smile,  and  said : — "  I  will  not  bandy  fine  sentiments 
with  thee,  romantic  Indian;  but  mark  my  word,  and 
remember  that  I  shall  keep  it.  Toward  the  latter  part 
of  November,  I  expect  a  galley  from  New  Orleans.  If, 
when  she  arrives,  the  village  of  the  White  Apple  is  not 
delivered  up  to  me,  I  will  send  thee  bound  hand  and 
foot  to  our  great  chief  in  our  great  village  down  the 
river.  Thou  seest  that  I  make  short  work  of  it.  Go." 
"  Good,  I  see,"  replied  the  Indian ;  "  and  I  go  home  to 
lay  thy  communication  before  the  old  and  wise  men  of 
the  nation." 

When  all  the  magnates  of  the  Natchez  met  in  council, 
at  the  call  of  their  sovereign,  every  one  of  them  knew 
beforehand  the  subject  of  their  future  deliberations. 
The  words  of  the  French  chief  had  been  spoken  pub- 
licly, and  had  spread  like  wildfire,  causing  the  utmost 
indignation,  and  rousing  the  slumbering  hatred  which 


SPEECH  OF  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  WHITE  APPLE.  399 

bad  been  pent  up  in  more  than  one  breast  against  the 
insolent  intruders.  But  when  what  had  happened  was 
officially  communicated  by  the  Great  Sun,  there  was  in 
the  assembly  a  fresh  outburst  of  indignation,  which  was 
hushed  up  and  gave  place  to  profound  silence,  when  the 
chief  of  the  White  Apple  was  seen  to  rise.  Next  to  the 
Great  Sun,  he  was  the  most  influential  man  among  the 
Natchez,  on  account  of  his  exploits  as  a  warrior,  and  of 
his  eloquence  as  an  orator.  Majestically  rising,  he  stood 
up,  buried  as  it  were  in  profound  meditation,  while  all 
eyes  were  riveted  on  his  noble  form.  After  the  lapse 
of  a  few  minutes,  he  thus  began : — 

"  Children  of  the  Sun,  old  traditions  and  oracles  have 
long  informed  us  of  the  approaching  doom  that  awaits 
our  nation.  We  have  had  ancestors,  but  we  are  des- 
tined to  be  the  ancestors  of  no  human  beings.  If  those 
traditions  and  oracles  are  true ;  nay,  if  portentous 
signs  and  appearances  are  to  be  believed,  soon  this  na- 
tion, which  once  was  so  powerful,  wrill  cease  to  exist. 
We  have  been  gradually  shrinking  up  into  a  small  and 
weak  population,  and  our  once  broad  domains,  which  it 
required  so  many  moons  to  travel  over,  have  fast 
escaped  from  our  grasp,  as  water  oozes  through  the 
fingers  by  which  it  is  clutched.  Diseases,  frequent  hu- 
man sacrifices  in  honor  of  our  dead  chiefs,  and  long  wars 
with  some  of  the  red  tribes  by  which  we  are  surrounded, 
had  contributed  to  diminish  our  numbers,  when,  on  a 
sudden,  there  came  upon  us  this  hostile  race,  the  pale- 
faced  warriors,  who  had  been  announced  to  us  as  our 
future  destroyers.  Bowing  to  the  decree  of  the  Great 
Spirit,  and  yielding  to  the  superior  powers  which  we 
recognized  in  these  strange  men,  we  tried  to  conciliate 
their  good-will,  and  we  granted  them  land  and  all  sorts 
of  supplies.  What  has  been  the  consequence  ?  Every 
year  they  have,  become  more  greedy,  exacting,  and  over- 


400  SPEECH  OF  THE 

bearing.  Every  year,  between  them  and  our  people, 
quarrels  have  sprung  up,  in  which  blood  was  shed,  and 
for  which  we  had  to  make  atonement,  sometimes  at  the 
cost  of  the  heads  of  our  most  illustrious  warriors.  The 
vicinage  of  these  men  has  become  at  last  an  intolerable 
curse  upon  us.  With  their  merchandise  and  new  wares, 
they  have  introduced  new  wants  among  our  people, 
corrupted  their  morals,  and  changed  particularly  the 
manners  of  our  young  men,  who  now  despise  the  rug- 
ged virtues  of  their  forefathers  to  ape  the  frivolity  of 
the  French,  and  have  become  effeminate  and  worthless 
drunkards.  As  to  our  women,  their  heads  have  been 
turned  by  the  silver  tongue  and  the  gaudy  plumage  of 
these  loose  strangers.  What  is  the  result?  Why, 
that  debauchery  has  crept  into  every  bosom,  and  that 
the  very  blood  of  the  Natchez  is  tainted  in  its  source. 
Which  of  us  is  sure  now  of  the  affections  and  of  the 
purity  of  his  daughter  or  of  his  wife,  when  yonder 
thieves  are  prowling  about  our  dwellings  ?  Before  the 
French  settled  near  us,  we  were  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  the  greatest  of  blessings — boundless  freedom !  What 
are  we  now  ? — hardly  better  than  slaves ! — are  we  not 
controlled  in  every  thing,  and  dare  we  move  without 
asking  leave  from  that  haughty  chief  who  sits  in  yon- 
der fort  with  the  white  flag  ?  Are  they  not  stripping 
us  every  day  of  the  poor  remains  of  our  ancient  lib- 
erty? Do  they  not  frequently  strike  us  with  clubs, 
as  they  do  with  the  black  slaves?  Depend  upon  it, 
they  will  soon  seize  upon  us,  put  us  in  irons,  force  us  to 
work  for  them  in  their  fields,  tie  us  to  posts  and  apply 
the  lash  to  our  backs,  as  they  do  with  the  black  faces. 
Shall  we  wait  for  that  moment,  or  shall  we  not  prefer 
to  die  before,  but  satiated  with  blood,  and  surfeited 
with  revenge  ?" 

Here  a  low  and  half-suppressed  growl,  forcing  its  way, 


CHIEF  OF  THE  WHITE  APPLE.  401 

as  it  were,  through  clenched  teeth,  was  heard  running 
through  that  grim-visaged  assembly,  and  some  of  the 
young  warriors,  giving  way  to  their  excitement,  started 
up  from  their  seats,  and  uttering  a  fierce  shout,  shook 
their  tomahawks  with  wild  fury.  The  orator  looked 
round  with  a  grave  and  rebuking  glance,  as  if  disap- 
proving the  undignified  and  premature  display  of  feel- 
ings by  which  he  had  been  interrupted,  and  waving  his 
hand  as  if  he  commanded  silence,  he  thus  continued : — 
"  Have  we  not  met  now  to  deliberate  on  a  peremptory 
command  which  the  French  have  ventured  to  send  to 
us  ?  Have  we  not  before  us  a  sample  of  their  present 
audacity,  and  the  harbinger  of  their  future  daring  ? 
Have  they  not  ordered  us  to  relinquish  to  them  the 
harvests  which  grow  around  us,  and  which  are  the  re- 
sults of  our  labors  ?  Do  they  not  order  us  away  from 
the  village  of  the  White  Apple,  to  shift  for .  ourselves 
in  the  woods  like  wild  beasts  ?  Will  they  not  soon 
drive  us  out  of  the  other  villages  ?  What  then  will 
become  of  the  tombs  of  our  ancestors  and  of  the  cradles 
of  our  children  ?  The  white  faces  will  run  their  plows 
over  the  bones  of  our  dead,  and  put  their  cattle  in  our 
temples.  Shall  we  consent  to  such  profanation  ?  Are 
we  not  strong  enough  to  prevent  it  ?  We  are.  Shall 
we  wait  until  the  French  become  so  numerous  that  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  resist  oppression  ?  For  my  part,  I 
say — no !  We  can  destroy  them  all,  if  we  choose,  and 
if  we  act  with  proper  courage  and  skill.  Should  we  be 
doomed  in  our  turn  to  perish  all,  and  leave  none  of  our 
race  behind,  let  it  not  be  without  having  struck  a  blow 
worthy  of  the  children  of  the  Sun.  Let  us  not  be  im- 
molated like  bleating  sheep,  without  resistance,  but  let 
us  die  like  warriors,  after  having  done  a  deed  that  will 
make  the  name  of  the  Natchez  famous  among  all  the 
red  tribes,  however  distant  they  may  be  from  our  na- 
AA 


402  SPEECH  OF  THE 

tive  hills.  I  pause to  put  thjs  question :  shall 

we  yield  our  birth-place,  our  beautiful  valleys,  our  tem- 
ples, our  sacred  mounds,  the  tombs  of  our  ancestors, 
and  every  thing  that  we  hold  dear,  without  a  struggle  ? 
and  shall  we  only  utter  impotent  wailings  like  babes, 
when  deprived  of  their  playthings?  Shall  we  move 
away  like  a  nation  of  cowardly  beggars,  to  steal  from 
some  weaker  tribe  the  land  that  we  shall  want  for  our 
support  ?  War  or  submission ! — which  do  you  choose  ? 
I  wait  for  an  answer." 

A  simultaneous  war-cry  announced  the  spontaneous 
decision  of  the  assembly  to  the  orator,  who  thus  re- 
sumed his  address,  with  a  grim  smile  of  exultation. 

"I  see  with  pride  that  the  contact  of  the  French 
has  not  yet  turned  the  Natchez  into  mean-spirited  wo- 
men. Now,  listen  to  what  I  propose  for  the  full  and 
secure  accomplishment  of  our  design.  We  have  always 
been  reputed  to  have  more  mind  than  the  other  red 
nations ;  let  us  show  it  on  this  occasion.  All  the  In- 
dians— the  Yazoos,  the  Chickasaws,  the  Choctaws,  and 
others,  have  equally  suffered  like  us  from  French  inso- 
lence, and  must  be  tired  of  their  oppressive  domination. 
Let  us  invite  them  to  forget  our  past  hostilities,  to  join 
with  us  in  a  holy  alliance  against  the  common  enemy, 
and  to  free  our  father-land  with  one  blow  from  the 
hated  presence  of  strangers.  Let  ambassadors  be  forth- 
with sent  to  them,  to  lay  our  proposition  before  their 
councils  of  wise  men.  If  they  adopt  it,  let  bundles, 
made  up  of  an  equal  number  of  small  sticks,  be  remitted 
to  them,  and  let  one  stick  be  removed  every  day.  The 
last  remaining  one  will  designate  the  day  when  this 
combined  attack  shall  be  made  against  the  French,  over 
the  whole  face  of  the  country.  Thus  assailed  by  sur- 
prise, and  isolated,  cut  off  from  the  reciprocal  succor 
which  the  several  settlements  would  give  to  each  other 


CHIEF  OF  THE  WHITE  APPLE.  403 

if  this  plan  be  not  adopted,  the  French  must  succumb 
under  the  vastly  superior  numbers  that  we  shall  bring 
against  them.  But,  for  the  successful  execution  of  this 
combination,  we  must  gain  time,  and  we  must  humbly 
entreat  our  august  sovereign,  the  Great  Sun,  here  pres- 
ent, to  enter  into  negotiations  with  the  hungry  French 
wolf,  the  crocodile-hearted  chief  in  yonder  fort,  to  obtain, 
by  dint  of  presents,  that  our  removal  be  postponed,  and 
that  the  delay  be  sufficiently  long  to  ripen  to  maturity 
the  good  fruit  of  this  day's  deliberations.  The  chief 
of  the  White  Apple,  children  of  the  Sun,  has  but  one 
more  recommendation  to  make,  with  a  view  to  secure 
the  success  of  our  enterprise :  that  is,  the  observation  of 
secrecy.  You  know  that  women  are  never  to  be  trusted 
in  any  thing,  much  less  with  designs  of  importance. 
They  are  fickle  and  indiscreet,  and  they  can  no  more 
keep  a  secret  than  a  sieve  will  hold  water.  Besides, 
many  of  them  love  the  French,  and  would  certainly 
betray  us.  Therefore,  let  us  swear  before  we  separate, 
to  keep  our  lips  sealed,  and  not  to  say  one  word  which 
might  give  to  our  women  the  slightest  intimation  of 
what  we  intend.  The  chief  of  the  White  Apple  has 
done,  children  of  the  Sun,  and  waits  for  better  advice." 

The  orator  sat  down  amid  a  universal  hum  of  ap- 
plause, and  all  his  propositions  were  accepted  by  ac- 
clamation. 

The  next  day,  the  Great  Sun  called  at  the  French 
fort,  and  representing  to  Chopart  how  ill  prepared  they 
were  to  move  so  suddenly,  without  having  selected 
the  place  whither  they  could  transport  their  effects,  he 
obtained  that  the  fulfillment  of  the  order  of  expulsion 
should  be  postponed  until  the  latter  part  of  December, 
provided  that  the  Natchez  should  pay  to  Chopart,  in 
the  interval,  a  contribution  consisting  of  one  barrel  of 
corn,  and  a  certain  quantity  of  fowls,  furs,  and  bear's 


404        INDIAN  LEAGUE SUSPICIONS  OF  THE  "WOMEN. 

oil,  for  each  and  every  cabin  of  the  White  Apple  vil- 
lage: which  was  a  pretty  considerable  and  valuable 
contribution,  considering  that  there  were  eighty  cabins 
in  the  village.  The  Great  Sun  and  the  French  officer 
parted,  both  equally  satisfied  with  the  bargain  they 
had  made.  The  one  had  gratified  his  appetite  for  gain, 
and  the  other  thought  that  he  had  secured  his  revenge. 

After  some  time,  the  ambassadors  of  the  Natchez  re- 
turned, and  brought  back  the  information,  that  all  the 
Indian  nations  to  which  they  had  been  sent,  had  eagerly 
embraced  the  proposition  made  to  them,  and  had  en- 
tered into  the  league  against  the  French,  whom  they 
would  attack  on  the  day  fixed.  Thus,  the  whole  col- 
ony was  threatened  with  total  destruction,  through  the 
imprudence  of  an  avaricious  and  tyrannical  subaltern 
officer.  It  is  evident  that  the  Indians  could,  at  any 
time,  if  united,  have  crushed  the  French  without  much 
effort,  if  we  believe  a  statement  made  by  Diron  d'Ar- 
taguette,  in  a  dispatch  dated  on  the  9th  of  December, 
1Y28,  and  in  which  he  estimated  that  the  Indians  set- 
tled on  the  banks  of  the  principal  rivers  of  Louisiana 
could  set  on  foot  seventeen  thousand  men,  and  said 
that,  with  regard  to  the  inland  nations,  one  of  them 
alone,  the  nation  of  the  Choctaws,  could  bring  into 
the  field  ten  thousand  warriors. 

All  the  movements  which  I  have  related,  had  not 
taken  place  among  the  Natchez  without  exciting  the 
suspicions  of  the  women  ;  and  with  that  eager  curiosity 
which  is  said  to  characterize  their  sex,  they  went  to 
work  to  discover  what  was  in  the  wind.  The  Great 
Sun,  whose  intended  suicide,  on  the  death  of  his 
brother  Stung  Serpent,  had  been  prevented  by  the 
French,  had  since  died,  and  had  been  succeeded  by  a 
young  Sun,  his  nephew,  the  same  who  had  struggled 
with  the  Great  Sun,  to  take  possession  of  the  gun  with 


THE  MOTHER  OF  THE  GREAT  SUIT.  405 

which  that  prince  wanted  to  blow  out  his  brains.  The 
mother  of  the  new  sovereign  was  a  woman  distinguish- 
ed for  her  intellect.  She  had  a  great  deal  of  partiality 
for  the  French,  and  it  was  even  reported  that  her  son 
was  the  offspring  of  an  amour  she  had  carried  on  with 
a  French  officer.  Disquieted  by  the  observations  she 
had  made,  she  inquired  of  her  son  what  was  the  motive 
of  the  recent  meetings  of  the  nobles  and  of  the  embas- 
sies which  had  sped  in  every  direction.  He  answered 
her,  that  the  object  of  these  missions  was  merely  to  re- 
new the  alliances  of  the  Natchez  with  the  other  nations, 
and  to  smoke  with  them  the  calumet  of  peace.  She  ap- 
peared satisfied  with  the  answer :  but  when,  on  the  re- 
turn of  the  ambassadors,  she  saw  that  instead  of  receiv- 
ing them  publicly,  as  was  the  old  custom,  the  nobles 
met  in  secret-  session  to  listen  to  their  communication, 
which  was  not  afterward  made  known  to  the  people, 
all  her  fears  revived,  and  she  resolved  to  penetrate  into 
such  mysterious  proceedings. 

She  requested  the  Great  Sun  to  accompany  her  to  a 
village  called  the  Corn  Village,  where  she  pretended  to 
have  a  female  relation  extremely  sick,  who  required  her 
assistance.  On  her  son  complying  with  her  wish,  she 
departed  with  him,  and  took  the  least  frequented  path, 
under  the  pretext  that  it  was  the  most  shady,  and  the 
most  agreeable.  When  they  arrived  at  a  spot  which 
the  princess,  from  its  solitary  appearance,  thought  the 
most  free  from  unexpected  intrusion,  and  therefore  most 
favorable  for  the  accomplishment  of  her  design,  she 
pleaded  fatigue,  and  begged  her  son  to  sit  down  by  her. 
She  then  addressed  him  thus : 

"  The  weariness  of  my  old  limbs  is  not  the  only  cause 
why  I  stop  here,  my  son.  I  wished  for  an  opportunity 
to  speak  to  thee  in  private,  and  without  fear  of  inter- 
ruption. Open  thy  ears  to  admit  my  words  into  thy 


406  THE  MOTHER  OF  THE  GREAT  SUff 

brain,  because  they  are  weighty.  I  have  always  taught 
thee  to  avoid  a  lie  as  the  most  disgraceful  of  sins,  and  I 
have  always  told  thee  that  a  liar  did  not  deserve  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  man,  much  less  as  a  warrior.  But 
were  a  Sun,  and  particularly  the  chief  of  the  Suns,  to 
tell  a  lie,  he  would  fall  even  beneath  the  contempt  of 
women.  How  can  I  doubt,  therefore,  but  that  thou  wilt 
speak  the  truth  to  thy  mother  ?  Are  not  all  the  Suns 
bound  together  with  fraternal  ties,  -whether  they  be 
males  or  females  ?  Are  not  their  interests  the  same  ? 
Are  they  not  but  one  family?  And  if  there  be  some 
shadow  of  an  excuse  for  not  trusting  one  or  two  young 
and  giddy-headed  female  Suns,  does  the  same  reason  ex- 
ist for  the  aged  and  trust-worthy,  and,  above  all,  for  the 
gray-haired  mother  of  the  sovereign  of  the  Natchez? 
I  have  discovered  that  there  is  a  secret  at  work  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Suns ;  and  yet  that  secret  is  kept  conceal- 
ed from  me,  as  if  my  lips  had  been  cut  wide  apart,  and 
could  no  longer  be  sealed !  Do  I  deserve  such  treat- 
ment ?  Does  it  not  reflect  shame  and  disgrace  on  thee  ? 
The  contempt  shown  to  a  mother  taints  the  son  through 
skin,  flesh,  and  bones.  Dost  thou  know  me  to  be  vile, 
and  capable  of  betraying  thee  and  my  tribe  ?  Thou 
dost  not  dare  to  harbor  the  thought  that  I  can  inten- 
tionally commit  such  a  crime  !  Well  then  !  Didst  thou 
ever  know  me  to  be  talking  in  my  sleep  ?  Why  there- 
fore am  I  not  trusted,  as  it  is  my  right  ?  Why  am  I 
spat  upon  by  my  tribe,  and  by  my  son  ?  Where  is  the 
cause  of  such  heart-bruising  contumely  ?  What !  hast 
thou  not  come  out  of  my  womb  ?  Whence  dost  thou 
draw  thy  blood  but  from  my  veins  ?  Whence  did  flow 
the  milk  which  fed  thy  infant  lips  but  from  my  breast  ? 
Wouldst  thou  be  a  Sun — nay,  the  Great  Sun,  wert 
thou  not  my  child  ?  Without  the  tender  nursing  with 
which  I  surrounded  thy  cradle  where  wouldst  thou  be  ? 


ENDEAVORS  TO  PENETRATE  THE  SECRET.  407 

By  me,  and  through  me,  thou  art  every  thing,  and  to 
me  thou  art  the  most  precious  and  most  beloved  thing 
I  possess.  Yet  I  stand  now  by  thy  side,  without  being 
even  looked  at,  and  no  more  noticed  by  thee,  than  if  I 
were  a  worthless  cur  \  Why  dost  thou  not  drive  me 
away  with  thy  foot,  or  thy  whip  ?  Is  it  because  in  our 
nation,  a  son  has  never  been  guilty  of  such  an  outrage 
toward  his  mother  ?  Nay  then — why  dost  thou  insult 
me,  in  a  different,  it  is  true,  but  no  less  mortifying  man- 
ner ?  To  conceal  from  me,  the  oldest  female  Sun,  me, 
the  mother  of  the  sovereign  of  the  Natchez,  a  great  na- 
tional resolution  taken  by  our  nobles,  what  is  it  but  an 
affront  equivalent  to  a  blow  ?  When  the  womb  of  the 
whole  nation  is  heaving  up  with  the  conception  of  a  big 
design,  could  such  throes  escape  my  motherly  penetra- 
tion ?  Am  I  a  fool  ?  Am  I  an  idiot  ?  Was  it  becom- 
ing in  thee  to  wait  until  I  should  descend  to  an  inquiry  ? 
And  shouldst  thou  not,  before  this  time,  have  opened 
thy  mind  to  thy  mother  ?  Didst  thou  think  that  I 
have  lived  so  long  without  having  acquired  sagacity 
enough  to  look  into  thy  heart  with  as  much  facility  as 
into  any  of  our  wells  of  pure  water  ?  The  Natchez 
meditate  to  rise  upon  the  French. — Is  it  not  the  truth  ? 
Is  not  my  finger  on  the  sore  ?  Nay ;  why  dost  thou 
start,  and  why  this  bewildered  look  ?  None  of  the  pale 
faces  listen  to  us,  and  dost  thou  fear  that  I  shall  sell 
thee  in  bondage  to  them  ?  What  dost  thou  imagine 
they  could  give  me,  me  whose  body  is  bent  with  age, 
and  whose  feet  are  already  sprinkled  with  the  dust  of 
death,  in  exchange,  or  as  a  full  price  for  a  son's  blood  ? 
And  now,"  said  she,  rising  with  solemn  dignity,  and 
speaking  with  the  deepest  emphasis,  "  farewell  forever  ! 
The  earth  refuses  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  mother 
who  is  despised  by  her  son: — the  blessed  air  which 
drops  from  heaven  is  profaned  by  entering  her  lungs. 


408  THE  GREAT  SUN'S  MOTHER 

Dig  my  grave  :  for  the  sight  of  thy  dishonored  mother 
shall  not,  to-morrow,  disgrace  any  longer  the  ancestral 
rays  of  yonder  God,  from  whom  we  draw  our  origin." 

Warm  tears  gushed  from  the  eyes  of  the  young  prince 
when  he  heard  reproaches  which  racked  his  heart,  but 
he  preserved  his  composure,  and  whatever  might  have 
been  his  inward  emotion,  he  calmly  rose,  and  seizing  his 
mother  by  the  arm,  he  gently  forced  her  to  resume  her 
seat.  Then,  several  minutes  elapsed,  when  he  seemed 
to  be  buried  in  reflection,  and  to  be  struggling  against 
the  opposite  influences  of  affection  and  of  prudence. 
At  last  he  said,  mournfully  and  respectfully : — "  Mother, 
thy  reproaches  are  poisoned  arrows  which  pierce  my 
heart.  These  reproaches  are  not  deserved.  I  have 
never  repulsed  nor  despised  thee.  But  hast  thou  ever 
heard  that  it  was  permitted  to  reveal  what  had  been 
resolved  by  the  Wise  men  of  the  nation  in  secret  coun- 
cil ?  Am  I  not  the  Great  Sun  ?  Must  I  not  set  the 
good  example  ?  Wouldst  thou  persuade  thy  son  to  do 
a  base  thing?  Am  I  not  more  bound  to  secrecy  than 
any  body  else,  from  one  peculiar  circumstance  ?  Is  it 
not  darkly  rumored"  (looking  fixedly  at  his  mother) 
"  that  my  father  was  a  Frenchman  ?  And  might  I  not 
be  suspected  of  partiality  toward  them,  although  the 
Great  Spirit  knows  that  I  hate  them  worse  than  any 
red  foe  our  nation  ever  had!  But  since  thou  hast 
guessed  all,  what  more  shall  I  say  ?  Thou  knowest  as 
much  as  I  do.  Therefore,  close  thy  lips." 

"  I  approve  thy  resentment  against  the  oppressors  of 
our  race,  my  son,"  continued  the  princess,  "1but  I  trem- 
ble lest  the  Natchez  should  not  have  taken  sufficient 
precautions  to  secure  their  revenge,  without  exposing 
our  whole  nation  to  destruction.  We  can  not  succeed, 
unless  we  take  the  French  by  surprise.  Although  their 
chief  has  lost  his  mind,  they  are  wary  and  brave ;  if 


DISCOVERS  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  LEAGUE.  409 

they  discover  that  we  meditate  aught  against  them, 
they  have  plenty  of  merchandise  to  tempt  all  the  other 
nations  to  rise  against  us.  If  you  were  painting  your 
bodies  in  the  colors  *of  war  to  march  against  a  red  na- 
tion, my  sleep  would  not  be  disturbed,  and  I  would  not 
have  made  to  thy  feelings  the  appeal  which  has  dis- 
quieted them  so  much.  But  the  pale  faces  are  a  fearful 
race.  They  know  infinitely  more  than  we  do,  and  they 
have  resources  that  we  dream  not  of.  It  is  not  for  my- 
self that  I  tremble  ;  it  is  for  thee ;  it  is  for  our  nation. 
Old  as  I  am,  what  care  I  how  soon  or  how  I  die? 
What  is  it  to  me  whether  I  am  killed  by  an  Indian  or 
a  French  warrior  ?  But  there  is  more  caution  in  wo- 
man than  in  man,  and  I  may  detect  some  flaw  in  the 
net  you  have  spread  around  the  French,  and  give  good 
advice.  For  instance,  one  thing  above  all  strikes  me  at 
first  sight.  Granting  you  all  the  success  that  you  may 
anticipate,  and  supposing  that  you  destroy  every  French- 
man, woman,  and  child  that  live  in  the  neighborhood 
of  our  villages ;  admitting  also  that  you  take  possession 
of  yonder  thundering  fort,  would  not  their  countrymen 
come  from  their  big  village  down  below,  with  innume- 
rable red  allies,  and  overwhelm  us  in  complete  destruc- 
tion ?  What  would  signify  our  short-lived  triumph  ?" 

Thus  she  artfully  went  on  until  she  gradually  drew 
from  him  the  whole  plot,  and  she  appeared  tranquilized 
when  she  knew  all  the  details  of  the  conspiracy,  which 
she  confessed  to  have  been  conducted  with  the  utmost 
prudence  and  skill,  her  son  having  given  her  the  most 
positive  assurance  that  all  the  French  in  the  colony 
would  be  destroyed  at  one  blow  and  on  the  same  day, 
all  the  Indian  nations  having  joined  the  league,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Tunicas  and  the  Oumas,  who  had 
not  been  spoken  to,  because  they  were  known  to  be  too 
friendly  to  the  French.  Therefore  the  destruction  of 


410  TREACHERY  OF  THE  PRINCESS. 

these  .two  tribes  had  also  been  resolved  upon.  "  But," 
said  the  old  princess,  "  how  can  you  be  sure  that  among 
so  many  distant  nations,  there  will  not  be  some  mistake 
as  to  the  day  on  which  the  blow  is  to  be  struck." 
"  There  can  be  none,"  answered  her  son,  who  then  told 
her  all  about  the  bundles  of  sticks,  and  informed  her 
that  the  bundle  reserved  by  the  Natchez  was  preserved 
in  the  Great  Temple  of  the  principal  village. 

The  princess,  whose  name  was  "Bras  Pique"  or 
Pricked  Arm,  was  greatly  alarmed  at  the  extent  of  the 
danger  which  threatened  her  friends,  the  French,  but 
she  carefully  concealed  her  feelings  from  her  son,  and 
appeared  to  enter  warmly  into  the  conspiracy.  In  the 
mean  time,  she  thought  of  nothing  else  but  of  putting 
the  French  on  their  guard,  without  exposing  the  safety 
of  her  son  and  of  her  nation.  She  acted  under  the  sup- 
position, that  if  the  suspicions  of  the  French  were  once 
aroused,  they  would  assume  an  attitude  and  take  pre- 
cautions which  would  check  the  Natchez,  and  prevent 
the  breaking  out  which  they  meditated.  Thus,  by 
words  which  she  let  fall  from  her  lips,  as  it  were  care- 
lessly, she  excited  the  fears  of  some  Indian  women 
whom  she  knew  to  be  attached  to  the  French  by  more 
than  one  tender  tie,  and  who  communicated  their  infor- 
mation to  their  lovers.  The  old  Bras  Pique,  or  Pricked 
Arm,  did  more ;  seeing  no  sign  of  precaution  taken  by 
the  French,  notwithstanding  the  warning  she  had  caused 
to  be  given,  she  one  day  stopped  a  French  soldier  whom 
she  accidentally  met,  and  told  him  to  inform  the  French 
chief  that  the  Natchez  had  lost  their  minds,  and  that 
he  had  better  be  on  the  look  out,  and  increase  the 
strength  of  his  fort. 

The  soldier  repeated  this  admonition  to  Chopart,  who, 
instead  of  inquiring  into  the  causes  of  this  strange  piece 
of  information,  which  was  sent  to  him  in  such  a  vague 


HER  EFFORTS  TO  SAVE  THE  FRENCH.  411 

manner,  but  from  such  high  authority,  said  that  the 
princess  was  an  old  hag,  called  the  soldier  a  coward  and 
a  visionary,  put  him  in  the  stocks  to  punish  him  for 
spreading  false  reports,  and  declared  that  he  would  cer- 
tainly abstain  from  repairing  the  fortifications,  or  from 
doing  any  thing  which  would  give  the  Natchez  to  under- 
stand he  was  afraid  of  them,  because  the  secret  motive 
of  all  these  warnings,  as  he  pretended,  was  to  frighten 
him  out  of  his  resolution  to  force  them  to  evacuate  the 
village  of  the  White  Apple. 

Indefatigable  in  her  exertions  to  save  the  French, 
Pricked  Arm  penetrated  into  the  temple,  and  clandes- 
tinely withdrew  some  of  the  sticks  from  the  bundle,  in 
order  to  destroy  the  concert  which  had  been  agreed 
upon  among  the  Indian  tribes,  and  to  bring  on  prema- 
turely the  day  on  which  the  attack  was  to  be  made  by 
the  Natchez.  She  hoped  that  some  of  the  French,  at 
least,  would  escape,  and  have  time  to  put  on  their  guard 
the  rest  of  the  colony.  She  also  contrived  to  transmit 
indirect  and  anonymous  warnings  to  several  French- 
men, who  communicated  to  Chopart  what  they  had 
learned.  But  he  again  branded  them  with  the  epithet 
of  cowards,  and  put  some  of  them  under  arrest. 
Pricked  Arm,  astounded  at  the  result  of  her  repeated 
attempts,  and  forgetting  in  her  extreme  anxiety  the 
resolution  she  had  taken  not  to  expose  to  danger,  by 
too  positive  information,  her  son  and  her  whole  nation, 
went  so  far  as  to  address  one  Mace,  a  sub-lieutenant, 
and  to  tell  him  enough  to  remove  all  doubts  from  minds 
not  unalterably  bent  on  resisting  the  persuasion  of 
the  strongest  evidence.  She  presumed  that  Mace,  be-- 
ing  an  officer,  would  have  more  influence  on  the  French 
commander.  But  she  was  deceived,  and  Chopart  re- 
mained wedded  to  the  same  fatal  incredulity.  Be- 
wildered at  the  sight  of  such  infatuation,  the  old  prin- 


412  INFATUATION  OF  CHOPART. 

cess  was  struck  with  superstitious  awe,  and  very  natu- 
rally came  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  French  were 
doomed  by  the  Great  Spirit,  and  abandoned  by  the 
very  God  they  worshiped.  From  that  moment  she 
became  passive,  and  seemed  to  have  accepted  the  de- 
cree of  fate  with  the  stoical  indifference  so  common  to 
Indians. 

Time,  however,  was  flying  apace ;  and  on  the  very  eve 
of  the  contemplated  attack,  Chopart  took  a  step  which 
seemed  to  be  the  inspiration  of  some  evil  spirit  deter- 
mined to  treat  its  victim  to  the  last  with  mischievous 
mockery.  In  order  to  show  in  a  signal  manner  his  con- 
tempt for  the  alarming  reports  which  had  been  made  to 
him,  and  his  determination  to  put  a  stop  to  them  for  the 
future,  he  went  with  several  Frenchmen  to  the  Great  Vil- 
lage of  the  Natchez,  and  caroused  with  them  the  whole 
night.  The  Great  Sun,  to  whom  he  communicated  all 
the  intelligence  which,  from  time  to  time,  had  been  laid 
before  him,  concerning  the  alledged  conspiracy,  behaved 
with  great  composure  and  profound  dissimulation,  not- 
withstanding his  youth,  and  persuaded  the  infatuated 
man  that  the  Natchez  were  his  best  friends,  and  that  if 
he  had  enemies,  it  was  among  his  own  countrymen. 
"  In  confirmation  of  my  declaration,"  he  said,  "  my  peo- 
ple will  bring  to  thee  to-morrow  more  than  the  amount 
of  the  tribute  for  which  thou  hast  granted  us  time  for 
our  removal,  and  will  then  put  thee  in  possession  of  the 
White  Apple  Village."  Chopart  returned  to  the  fort, 
late  in  the  night,  drunk  with  pride  and  the  fumes  of 
the  potations  in  which  he  had  freely  indulged.  Feeling 
the  want  of  rest,  he  gave  the  most  precise  order  that, 
under  no  pretext  whatever,  he  should  be  waked  up  be- 
fore nine  in  the  morning. 

When  that  morning  came,  which  was  on  the  29th  of 
November,  the  eve  of  St.  Andrew's  day,  long  before 


THE  MORN  OF  THE  29TH  NOVEMBER.  413 

the  rising  of  the  sun  there  was  a  great  bustling  in  all 
the  villages  of  the  Natchez.  The  conspirators  had 
taken  their  measures  with  such  foresight  and  precision, 
that,  at  the  same  moment,  within  a  radius  of  many 
miles,  the  house  of  every  Frenchman,  however  remote 
it  was,  found  itself  full  of  Indians  asking  for  something 
or  other.  Some  begged  for  powder,  shot,  and  brandy, 
to  go  on  a  hunting  expedition,  promising  to  make  ample 
returns  for  the  desired  loan.  Others  had  a  present 
to  make,  or  an  old-remembered  debt  to  pay,  or  some 
bargain  or  other  to  propose.  Motives  or  excuses  of  in- 
finite variety  were  not  wanting  to  remove  suspicion. 
At  eight,  the  Great  Sun  was  seen  departing  from  his 
village  at  the  head  of  his  nobles  and  of  a  troop  of  war- 
riors. The  procession  moved  with  a  great  noise  of  in- 
struments, and  carried,  with  as  much  show  as  possible, 
the  stipulated  tribute  of  fowls,  corn,  oil,  and  furs.  The 
master  of  ceremonies,  gorgeously  dressed,  and  makiug 
himself  conspicuous  above  the  rest,  twirled  on  high,  and 
with  fantastic  gestures,  the  calumet  of  peace.  With 
demonstrations  of  joy,  they  went  several  times  round 
the  fort,  and  entered  the  house  of  the  French  comman- 
der, who,  waked  up  by  the  noise,  made  his  appearance 
in  his  morning  gown.  Elated  at  the  sight  of  the  valu- 
able presents  which  were  laid  before  him,  laughing  in 
his  heart  at  the  credulity  of  those  who  had  attempted 
to  rouse  suspicions  in  his  mind  as  to  the  fidelity  of  his 
Indian  friends,  he  ordered  the  givers  of  warnings,  as 
he  called  them,  to  be  released  from  their  confinement, 
that  they  should  come  to  see  how  futile  were  their 
cowardly  fears.  Then,  the  Indians  began  to  dance,  to 
sing,  and  to  creep  into  the  fort  and  everywhere.  In 
the  mean  time,  a  chosen  band  of  warriors  glided  down 
the  hill  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  where  the  long-ex- 
pected and  richly-laden  galley,  which  had  arrived  the 


414          THE  MASSACRE  OF  THE  FRENCH. 

day  previous,  was  moored.  There,  each  warrior  having 
leisurely  picked  his  man  and  made  his  aim  sure,  a  sim- 
ultaneous discharge  was  heard. 

This  was  the  preconcerted  signal,  which  was  followed 
far  and  wide  by  discharges  of  firearms  so  close  on  each 
other,  that  they  seemed  to  make  but  one  volley.  Let 
us  listen  to  Governor  Perier  himself,  relating  that  event 
in  one  of  his  dispatches :  "  Such  being  the  dispositions 
of  the  Indians,  and  the  hour  having  come,"  says  he, 
"  the  general  assassination  of  the  French  took  so  little 
time,  that  the  execution  of  the  deed  and  the  preceding 
signal  were  almost  but  one  and  the  same  thing.  One 
single  discharge  closed  the  whole  affair,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  house  of  La  Loire  des  Ursins,  in  which  there 
were  eight  men,  who  defended  themselves  with  despe- 
ration. They  made  the  house  good  against  the  Indians 
during  the  whole  day.  Six  of  them  were  killed,  and 
when  night  came,  the  remaining  t\vo  escaped.  When 
the  attack  began,  La  Loire  des  Ursins  happened  to  be 
on  horseback,  and  being  cut  off  from  his  house  by  the 
intervening  foes,  he  fought  to  death,  and  killed  four 
Indians.  The  people  who  were  shut  up  in  his  house 
had  already  killed  eight.  Thus  it  cost  the  Natchez 
only  twelve  men  to  destroy  two  hundred  and  fifty  of 
ours,  through  the  fault  of  the  commanding  officer,  who 
alone  deserved  the  fate  which  was  shared  by  his  unfor- 
tunate companions.  It  was  easy  for  him,  with  the 
arms  and  the  forces  he  had,  to  inflict  on  our  enemies  a 
severer  blow  than  the  one  we  have  received,  and  which 
has  brought  this  colony  to  within  two  inches  of  utter 
destruction." 

It  is  said  that  Chopart  had  the  grief  of  surviving  all 
his  countrymen.  Such  was  the  horror  and  contempt 
the  Natchez  had  for  him,  that  death  inflicted  by  the 
hands  of  a  warrior  was  thought  too  honorable  for  the 


INCIDENTS  OF  THE  MASSACRE.  415 

French  chief.  None  of  that  class  condescended  to  lay 
hands  upon  him,  and  the  lowest  among  the  stinking,  or 
plebeians,  was  sent  for,  who  beat  him  to  death  with  a 
club,  in  his  own  garden,  whither  he  had  fled.  A  few 
Frenchmen  escaped,  as  it  were  by  miracle,  from  the 
general  massacre:  among  others,  Navarre,  Couillard, 
Canterelle,  Louette,  and  Eicard,  who  succeeded  in 
reaching  New  Orleans  after  many  perilous  adventures. 
Two  men  only  were  spared  by  the  Natchez,  one  wag- 
oner, named  Mayeux,  to  be  employed  by  them  in  trans- 
porting all  the  goods,  merchandise,  and  effects  of  the 
French  to  the  public  square,  in  front  of  which  stood 
the  palace  of  the  Great  Sun,  and  where  that  sovereign 
was  to  make  a  distribution  of  the  spoils  among  his  sub- 
jects. The  other  Frenchman,  named  Lebeau,  was  a 
tailor,  and  owed  his  life  to  that  circumstance.  As  the 
Natchez  stood  in  want  of  his  craft,  they  preserved  him 
to  turn  him  to  profitable  account,  and  employed  him  in 
repairing,  or  reshaping  the  clothes  of  the  dead,  and  in 
fitting  them  to  the  bodies  of  the  new  owners.  Dumont 
relates  that  the  Natchez  were  particularly  pleased  with 
the  variegated,  diversified,  and  highly-colored  patches 
wrhich  he  adapted  to  their  vestments. 

The  women  and  children,  with  a  few  exceptions,  were 
spared  and  destined  to  be  slaves,  their  number  amount- 
ing to  about  three  hundred.  Many  of  the  blacks,  to 
whom  the  Natchez  had  promised  their  freedom  and  a 
share  in  the  booty,  had  been  induced  to  join  them  in 
the  conspiracy.  Some  of  them,  however,  had  the  credit 
of  remaining  faithful  to  the  French,  and  succeeded  in 
making  their  way  to  New  Orleans.  The  Natchez  being 
under  the  impression  that  all  the  French  were  destroyed 
throughout  the  land,  that  they  had  no  longer  any  thing 
to  fear  from  such  redoubtable  foes,  and  finding  them- 
selves more  wealthy  than  they  had  ever  been,  gave 


416  REPEATED  ASSASSINATIONS  OF  THE  FRENCH 

themselves  up  to  the  wildest  exhibitions  of  joy.  They 
wound  up  that  bloody  day  of  the  29th  of  November, 
by  a  general  carousal,  and  they  kept  dancing  and  sing- 
ing until  late  at  night,  around  pyramids  of  French 
heads,  piled  up  as  cannon-balls  usually  are  in  an  arse- 
nal. The  agonies  of  the  wretched  women  and  children 
who  witnessed  the  slaughter  of  their  husbands  and  fa- 
thers, and  who,  amid  the  demoniacal  rejoicings  which 
followed,  had  to  bear  outrages  too  horrific  to  be  related, 
are  more  easily  conceived  than  described !  Long  before 
the  next  day  dawned  upon  them,  the  Natchez  were  in 
such  a  state  of  inebriation,  that  thirty  well-determined 
Frenchmen,  says  Dumont,  could  have  destroyed  the 
whole  nation. 

The  Natchez,  when  they  came  back  to  their  senses, 
stationed  warriors  along  the  Mississippi,  to  watch  for 
all  canoes  and  barks  navigating  on  that  river,  and  a 
few  days  after  the  massacre,  they  descried  some  travel- 
ers coming  down  stream.  They  were  French,  and  on 
being  hailed,  not  suspecting  what  had  happened,  they 
came  to  landing.  They  were  five  in  number,  and 
hardly  had  they  touched  the  bank  of  the  river,  when 
they  were  received  with  a  discharge  of  muskets.  Three 
were  killed,  the  fourth  fled  to  the  woods,  where  he 
concealed  himself,  and  he  afterward  had  the  good  luck 
to  reach  the  friendly  village  of  the  Tunicas.  The  fifth 
was  taken  prisoner,  and  carried  to  the  great  village  of 
the  Natchez,  where  he  was  tortured  by  them  in  one  of 
the  public  exhibitions  of  the  kind  of  which  they  were 
so  fond,  with  all  the  refined  ferocity  peculiar  to  the  In- 
dians. 

The  Natchez  set  fire  to  all  the  habitations  of  the 
French,  which  were  reduced  to  ashes,  and  after  the 
first  outburst  of  riotous  excesses  i^  which  they  indulged 
to  celebrate  their  triumph,  they  set  to  work  with  intel- 


BY  THE  INDIANS.  417 

ligence  and  activity,  to  avail  themselves  to  the  ut- 
most of  the  success  they  had  obtained.  It  appears 
that,  for  some  reasons  unknown,  they  had  not  commu- 
nicated to  the  Yazoos  the  rising  they  meditated  against 
the  French.  On  the  very  day  of  the  massacre,  a  depu- 
tation of  Yazoos,  who  perhaps  suspected  what  was 
going  on,  had  arrived  among  the  Natchez.  They  were 
present  at  the  performance  of  that  bloody  drama,  and 
being  easily  persuaded  to  attack  the  few  French  peo- 
ple who  had  settled  on  their  territory,  they  departed 
with  a  certain  number  of  Natchez  warriors.  The  Yazoo 
settlement  was  distant  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
from  the  Natchez.  This  united  band  of  Yazoos  and 
Natchez  ascended  the  Mississippi  in  boats,  and,  on  their 
way  up,  discovered  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  in  a  shady 
spot,  some  travelers  assembled.  They  proved  to  be 
French,  and  were  coming  down  the  river  with  one  of 
the  Jesuit  missionaries.  When  they  were  descried 
by  the  Indians,  these  people  were  engaged  in  the  holy 
occupation  of  listening  to  a  mass  said  by  the  priest. 
With  that  stealthy,  cat-like  step,  so  familiar  to  their 
race,  the  Indians  approached  without  being  observed, 
and  poured  upon  them  their  fire  at  the  very  moment 
they  were  dropping  on  their  knees,  at  the  elevation  of 
the  Host ;  and  they  aimed  particularly  at  the  priest, 
whose  sacerdotal  habiliments  were  the  objects  most 
coveted  by  their  cupidity.  Strange  to  say,  the  mur- 
derous volley  of  balls  proved  harmless,  and  the  French 
had  time  to  fly  to  their  boat.  But  the  Indians  had 
also  time  to  reload  their  muskets,  and  fired  again  at  the 
fugitives,  who,  being  all  clustered  together  in  a  boat, 
presented  a  mark  which  the  most  inexperienced  shoot- 
ers could  hardly  fail  to  hit.  Yet,  the  only  one  among 
the  French  who  was  hurt,  was  the  man  who  was  push- 
ing the  boat  from  the  bank.  He  received  a  ball  in  the 
BB 


4:18  ST.  DENIS  COMMANDER  OF  NATCHITOCHES. 

thigh,  "but  succeeded  in  getting  into  the  boat,  and  was 
subsequently  cured  at  New  Orleans.  The  French  con- 
sidered their  escape  as  providential,  and  attributed  it 
to  the  presence  of  God  among  them  at  the  elevation 
of  the  host,  when  they  were  attacked  by  the  savage 
heathens.  For  many  years  after,  the  priesthood  often 
mentioned  this  fact  in  their  preachings. 

The  fort  which  the  French  had  built  among  the  Ya- 
zoos,  was  called  St.  Claude.  Its  commander,  Du  Coder, 
being  on  a  visit  to  the  French  at  Natchez,  when  they 
were  butchered,  shared  their  fate.  The  Yazoos  had  no 
difficulty  in  taking  by  surprise  the  fort  of  St.  Claude, 
which  had  a  garrison  only  of  twenty  men,  whom  they 
killed,  together  with  the  few  families  who  had  settled 
around,  under  the  protection  of  the  fort.  The  destruc- 
tion of  the  French  settlements  at  the  Yazoos,  took  place 
on  the  first  or  second  day  of  January,  1730. 

At  that  time,  St.  Denis  was  commander  of  Natchi- 
toches,  where  he  had  made  himself  so  popular,  that  he 
led  the  life  of  a  small,  half  barbaric,  half  civilized  poten- 
tate. For  hundreds  of  miles  round  that  settlement,  the 
Indians  had  submitted  to  his  sway,  and  had  readily  ac- 
knowledged him  as  their  great  chief.  He  settled  au- 
thoritatively all  the  disputes  arising  among  the  different 
tribes,  and  ruled  over  them  as  if  he  had  been  born  an 
Indian,  and  been  their  natural  sovereign.  He  had 
really  become  a  powerful  chieftain,  and  in  case  of  need, 
with  a  sufficient  allowance  of  time,  might  have  set  on 
foot  from  five  to  six  thousand  warriors.  The  Natchez 
feared  him  more  than  any  thing  else,  and  knowing  his 
daring  and  indomitable  energy,  had  no  doubt  but  that, 
on  his  hearing  of  the  slaughter  of  his  countrymen,  he 
would  march  against  their  assassins  at  the  head  of  a 
considerable  number  of  the  formidable  Texan  warriors. 
Resolving,  therefore,  to  anticipate  his  blow,  and  to  fall 


HE  DEFEATS  THE  NATCHEZ  AT  NATCHITOCHES.          419 

upon  him  when  least  expected,  they  sent  one  hundred 
and  fifty  warriors  on  that  expedition.  When  these  In- 
dians arrived  in  the  vicinity  of  the  French  fort  at  Nat- 
chitoches,  perceiving  that  they  were  discovered  by  the 
spies  of  the  vigilant  St.  Denis,  they  had  recourse  to  this 
stratagem.  They  sent  a  deputation  with  the  calumet 
of  peace,  to  inform  him  that  they  had  been  so  unfortu- 
nate as  to  have  lately  had  some  difficulties  with  the 
French  settled  in  their  neighborhood,  that  they  wished 
to  take  him  as  arbitrator  or  umpire,  and  that  they  had 
brought  with  them  a  Frenchwoman,  whom  they  wanted 
to  set  free,  and  to  deliver  to  him  in  token  of  their  good 
intentions. 

St.  Denis  answered  them,  that  he  would  accede  to 
their  proposition,  provided  they  brought  to  him  the 
Frenchwoman,  with  an  escort  only  of  ten  warriors. 
The  Natchez  refused  to  do  so,  and  insisted  upon  coming 
in  a  body.  St.  Denis  then  sent  them  word,  that  he 
saw  plainly  from  their  large  number,  and  from  their  re- 
fusal to  comply  with  his  demand,  that  they  were  trait- 
ors and  liars  bent  upon  mischief;  that  he  was  dis- 
posed, however,  to  allow  them  to  return  quietly  to  their 
villages,  provided  they  surrendered  to  him  the  French- 
woman, for  whom  he  would  pay  a  ransom.  Enraged 
at  the  answer  of  St.  Denis,  and  at  the  bad  result  of 
their  expedition,  the  Natchez  burnt  the  Frenchwoman 
in  sight  of  the  French  fort,  and  hastily  intrenched 
themselves,  so  as  to  be  protected  against  any  attack 
from  St.  Denis,  during  the  approaching  night. 

St.  Denis  had  at  his  disposal  only  forty  soldiers,  and 
twenty  settlers.  But  he  was  not  the  man  to  hesitate 
on  any  emergency  of  this  kind : — and  a  little  before 
daybreak,  leaving  twenty  soldiers  in  the  fort,  he 
marched  against  the  camp  of  the  Natchez,  at  the  head 
of  forty  Frenchmen,  and  forty  select  Natchitoches  war- 


420      ARRIVAL  OF  RICARD  AND  OTHERS  AT  NEW  ORLEANS. 

riors.  He  fell  upon  the"m  so  unexpectedly,  and  with 
such  fury,  that,  in  an  instant,  he  routed  them  com- 
pletely, and  killed  sixty,  without  having  lost  one  of  his 
men.  Of  the  Natchez  Avho  fled,  a  good  many  died  of 
their  wounds ;  only  a  few  reached  their  native  hills,  and 
were  the  bearers  of  a  melancholy  tale. 

Bicard  was  the  first  fugitive  from  Natchez,  who 
brought  to  New  Orleans  the  information  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  that  important  French  settlement.  He  looked 
so  haggard  and  so  bewildered,  that  he  was  thought  to 
be  deranged  in  mind,  and  nobody  would  believe  his 
statements.  But  Couillard  and  a  few  others  reached 
New  Orleans  soon  after,  on  the  3d  of  December,  and 
left  no  room  for  doubt.  Governor  Perier  then  knew 
all  the  extent  of  the  danger  he  had  run,  when  he  had 
prudently  refused  to  receive  the  visit  of  the  Choctaws, 
who,  to  the  number  of  six  hundred  warriors,  had  ar- 
rived at  the  mouth  of  the  Chefuncte  River,  in  Lake 
Pontchartrain,  on  the  1st  of  December,  and  had  sent  a 
deputation  to  Perier,  to  ask  leave  to  come  and  present 
him  with  the  calumet  of  peace.  Governor  Perier 
thought  that,  whatever  advantages  might  be  derived 
from  this  visit,  if  really  friendly,  would  be  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  the  danger  of  admitting  so  many 
Indians  in  the  capital,  and  sent  them  word,  that  he 
would  receive  their  chief  with  thirty  warriors  only. 
Seeing  that  they  were  suspected,  they  returned  to  their 
villages,  and  contented  themselves,  on  their  way  home, 
with  killing  and  stealing  some  cattle  which  belonged 
to  the  Pascagoula  settlement.  Which  circumstance 
shows  clearly  the  evil  intentions  with  which  they  were 
animated. 

A  short  time  after,  the  Choctaws  sent  a  deputation 
to  the  Natchez,  to  smoke  with  them  the  calumet  of 
peace,  and  to  renew  their  treaty  of  alliance.  But  not 


THE  CHOCTAWS  QUARREL  WITH  THE  NATCHEZ.          421 

receiving  as  valuable  presents  as  they  expected  from 
the  rich  spoils  of  the  French,  they  upbraided  the 
Natchez  with  their  meanness  and  perfidy,  reproaching 
them  with  having  hastened  prematurely  the  day  of  the 
attack  upon  the  French,  and  with  having,  in  this  man- 
ner, robbed  the  other  Indian  nations  of  their  chance  of 
plundering  their  common  enemy.  They  said  that  it 
was  owing  to  the  indiscreet  haste  of  the  Natchez, 
prompted  by  their  uncontrollable  avidity,  that  the 
Choctaw  expedition  against  New  Orleans  had  failed, 
the  French  having,  no  doubt,  received  at  that  time 
some  information  of  what  had  happened  at  Natchez. 
The  Choctaw  deputation  at  last  departed  in  great 
anger,  after  having  told  the  Natchez  that  they  were  no 
better  than  dogs,  and  that  they  would  be  treated  as 
such.  Not  long  after,  there  came  another  Choctaw 
deputation,  who  were  not  better  pleased  with  their  re- 
ception than  the  first.  Having  been  informed  that  the 
Natchez  were  deliberating  on  the  expediency  of  killing 
all  their  French  prisoners,  women  and  children,  who, 
they  thought,  proved  to  be  rather  an  expensive  encum- 
brance, the  Choctaws  went  in  ceremony  to  the  public 
square,  struck  at  the  warriors'  red  post,  which  stood 
there  according  to  immemorial  custom,  and  told  the 
Natchez  that  the  French  were  the  allies  of  the  Choctaws, 
who  would  march  with  all  the  forces  of  their  numerous 
nation  against  the  Natchez,  if  they  dared  to  make  away 
with  a  single  one  of  their  prisoners.  This  energetic 
demonstration  produced  great  effect  upon  the  Natchez, 
and  probably  saved  the  lives  of  the  French  captives. 
After  having  uttered  these  solemn  threats,  the  Choctaw 
ambassadors  departed,  leaving  the  Natchez  in  a  violent 
state  of  anxiety,  which  induced  them  to  meet  frequent- 
ly in  council,  without  being  able  to  come  to  any  con- 


422  PRECAUTIONS  TAKEN  BY  GOVERNOR  PELUER. 

elusion,  as  to  what  they  would  ultimately  do  in  an 
emergency  which  looked  so  critical. 

Governor  Perier,  on  the  very  day  that  he  was  in- 
formed of  the  Natchez  massacre,  sent  an  officer  with  a 
detachment  of  men  up  the  river  in  a  boat,  to  put  the 
planters  on  both  sides  of  the  river  on  their  guard, 
and  to  order  them  to  construct  redoubts  at  certain 
convenient  distances,  wherein  to  take  refuge  in  case 
of  need,  with  their  families,  their  goods,  and  their 
cattle.  This  order  was  complied  with  in  a  short 
time,  and  the  whole  coast,  as  it  is  called,  from  New 
Orleans  to  Natchez,  in  those  parts  where  it  was  set- 
tled, was  put  in  a  state  of  defense.  The  same  officer 
was  instructed  to  look  closely  into  what  was  going  on 
among  the  small  nations  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  and 
to  make  sure  of  their  fidelity.  A  courier  was  sent  to 
two  Choctaw  chiefs  who  were  shooting  ducks  on  Lake 
Pontchartrain  ;  and  they  were  informed  that  Governor 
Perier  wished  to  have  a  talk  with  them.  The  Choctaw 
nation  was  by  far  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  Indian 
tribes,  and  great  and  well-founded  doubts  existed  as  to 
their  intended  course  of  action  in  this  dangerous  crisis. 
It  had  become  extremely  important  to  secure  their  ser- 
vices, and  in  this  way,  to  remove  the  exaggerated  ap- 
prehensions of  the  colonists.  The  terror  which  pre- 
vailed was  so  intense,  that  Governor  Perier,  in  one  of 
his  dispatches,  said: 

"  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  see,  from  the  manifestation 
of  such  universal  alarm,  that  there  is  less  of  French 
courage  in  Louisiana  than  anywhere  else.  Fear  had  as 
sumed  such  uncontrollable  domination  over  all,  that  the 
very  insignificant  nation  of  the  Chouachas,  a  little  above 
New  Orleans,  which  was  composed  of  thirty  warriors, 
became  a  subject  of  terror  to  all  our  people.  This  in- 
duced me  to  have  them  destroyed  by  our  negroes,  who 


ALARMING  STATE  OF  THE  COLONY.  423 

executed  this  mission  with  as  much  promptitude  as 
secrecy.  This  example,  given  by  our  negroes,  kept  in 
check  all  the  small  nations  higher  up  the  river.  If  I 
had  been  inclined  to  avail  myself  of  the  good  disposi- 
tions of  our  negroes,  I  could  have  destroyed  by  them 
all  those  nations  which  are  of  no  service  to  us,  and 
which,  on  the  contrary,  may  stimulate  our  blacks  to  re- 
volt, as  the  Natchez  have  done.  But  certain  pruden- 
tial considerations  prevented  me,  and  in  the  situation  in 
which  I  was,  I  felt  that  it  was  safe  to  trust  none  but 
the  few  French  I  had  at  hand.  I  therefore  called  a 
general  meeting  of  them,  and  provided  them  with  arms. 
I  have  raised  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  in  New 
Orleans,  and  divided  them  into  four  companies,  each 
commanded  by  a  member  of  the  council.  I  have  chosen 
the  lieutenants  among  trusty  persons  employed  by  the 
government.  At  the  head  of  the  companies  which  I 
have  formed  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  I  have  put  the 
most  influential  planters,  and  I  have  ordered  that  a  cer- 
tain number  of  negroes  be  sent  to  make  intrenchments 
around  the  city  of  New  Orleans."  It  is  probable  that 
one  of  the  reasons  which  prompted  Perier  to  have  the 
throats  of  the  Chouachas  cut  by  the  negroes,  was  to 
produce  a  state  of  hostility  between  the  red  and  black 
races,  of  which  the  whites  were  equally  distrustful.  It 
was  an  act  of  policy,  cruel,  it  is  true,  but  not  without 
its  logic. 

On  the  5th  of  January,  IT 30,  Governor  Perier  sent 
a  vessel  to  France  to  inform  the  government  of  the  pre- 
carious situation  of  the  colony,  and  to  ask  for  the  assist- 
ance which  was  so  much  required.  He  had  also  dis- 
patched a  detachment  of  soldiers  and  planters,  under 
the  engineer  Broutin,  to  join  Loubois,  who  commanded 
at  Point  Coupee,  and  these  officers  were  requested  to 
try,  by  a  bold  and  sudden  stroke,  to  carry  off  the 


424:         THE  CHOCTAWS  MARCH  AGAINST  THE  NATCHEZ. 

French  women  and  children,  the  negroes  and  all  the 
canoes  the  Natchez  had  in  their  possession.  Captain 
de  Lassus  was  sent,  by  the  way  of  Mobile,  to  the  Choc- 
taws,  to  ascertain  whether  or  not  that  nation  was  dis- 
posed to  side  with  the  French. 

Every  day  there  came  to  New  Orleans  the  alarming 
report  of  some  traveler  being  murdered  on  his  way 
down  the  Mississippi.  On  the  8th  of  January,  Father 
Doutreleau,  a  Jesuit,  who,  having  been  attacked  at  the 
mouth  of  Yazoo  River,  had  received  two  wounds  in  the 
arm  and  lost  three  men,  reached  New  Orleans.  To 
prevent  the  recurrence  of  such  events  was  extremely 
desirable;  and  on  the  15th,  Governor  Perier  dis- 
patched a  bark  with  twenty  white  men  and  six  negroes, 
to  carry  ammunition  to  the  Illinois  settlement,  and  to 
pick  up  on  the  way,  protect  and  escort  to  New  Orleans, 
all  the  French  travelers  they  might  meet. 

On  the  16th,  the  governor  received  a  piece  of  intelli- 
gence which  removed  a  load  of  anxieties  from  his  mind. 
It  was,  that  the  Choctaws,  to  the  number  of  seven  hun- 
dred warriors,  commanded  by  a  French  officer  named 
Le  Sueur,  had  marched  against  the  Natchez,  and  that 
one  hundred  and  fifty  warriors  of  that  nation  had  set 
off  to  throw  themselves  between  the  Natchez  and  the 
Yazoos,  to  prevent  the  former  from  sending  away  to 
the  latter  any  portion  of  the  French  prisoners,  or  of 
the  negroes,  as  it  was  reported  they  would  do,  if  they 
were  attacked. 

The  rendezvous-general  of  the  French  who  were  to 
operate  against  the  Natchez  was  at  the  Tunicas,  and 
that  expedition  was  put  under  the  command  of  Loubois. 
While  the  French  were  still  gathering  at  that  spot,  it 
was  deemed  expedient  to  send  five  men  to  discover 
what  was  going  on  among  the  Natchez.  They  ascended 
the  Mississippi  in  a  boat,  and  landed,  says  Le  Page  du 


THE  FRENCH  SCOUTS  CAPTURED.          425 

Pratz,  at  nine  miles  from  the  Great  Village  of  the  Nat- 
— dlez,  at  the  mouth  of  a  small  stream  on  which  that 
village  was  situated,  and  which  discharged  itself  into 
the  Mississippi  at  the  foot  of  a  hill,  from  which  a  canoe 
might  be  spied  six  miles  off.  The  French  scouts  were 
not  seen,  however,  and  they  felt  so  secure,  that  after 
their  having  landed,  night  coming  on,  they  went  quietly 
to  sleep,  as  if  they  were  not  in  the  very  lap  of  danger. 
The  next  morning,  they  breakfasted  merrily,  and  drank 
so  much  brandy,  that  their  courage  worked  itself  up  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  boldness.  Thus,  they  walked 
straight  toward  the  Great  Village  of  the  Natchez,  with- 
out making  any  attempt  at  concealment,  and  they  were 
within  two  miles  of  it,  when,  on  a  sudden,  yelling  In- 
dians started  up  around  them  in  every  direction.  The 
French,  instead  of  crying  out  that  they  came  with 
peaceful  intentions,  and  of  trying  to  impress  the  enemy 
with  that  persuasion,  presumed  to  defend  themselves 
against  such  overwhelming  odds ;  and  one  of  them  by 
the  name  of  Navarre,  wTho  had  been  one  of  the  few  that 
had  escaped  from  the  great  massacre  on  the  29th  of 
November,  was  the  first  to  fire.  The  Indians,  however, 
appeared  disposed  to  keep  altogether  on  the  defensive, 
and  summoned  the  French  to  surrender.  But  these  mad- 
men, throwing  themselves  into  a  ravine  which  presented 
the  appearance  of  a  natural  intrenchment,  continued 
their  fire,  which  was  at  last  returned  by  the  Indians. 
Navarre  was  wounded,  and  became  more  furious :  speak- 
ing the  language  of  the  Natchez,  he  taunted  them  with 
every  sort  of  opprobrious  epithet,  and  went  on  fighting 
until  he  was  killed. 

The  four  other  Frenchmen,  who  seemed  to  have  been 
entirely  under  the  influence  of  Navarre,  and  who  had 
been  fighting  also  with  great  courage,  surrendered  as 
soon  as  he  was  dead.  They  were  conducted  to  the 


4:26  NEGOTIATIONS  FOR  PEACR 

Great  Sun,  and  Mesplais,  or  Mesplet,  an  officer  of  noble 
birth,  of  the  province  of  Beam,  in  France,  who  ought 
to  have  known  how  to  control  the  imprudent  temerity 
of  such  a  man  as  Navarre,  a  mere  soldier,  destitute  of 
education,  was  interrogated  by  the  Indian  prince.  On 
his  being  asked  what  the  object  of  his  visit  was,  Mes- 
plais answered  that  he  had  been  sent  by  his  chief  as  the 
bearer  of  propositions  of  peace.  "  But,"  observed  the 
Great  Sun,  "  how  earnest  thou  to  fire  at  those  who  merely 
said  to  thee  to  surrender  ?  One  of  thy  companions  is 
killed  and  thou  art  wounded,  through  his  and  thy  own 
fault.  Is  this  the  conduct  of  peace-bearers  ?"  Mesplais 
answered  that  Navarre  had  taken  too  much  of  the  fire- 
liquor,  and  begged  the  Great  Sun  to  remember  that, 
on  the  death  of  this  man,  he,  Mesplais,  had  ordered 
his  companions  to  lay  down  their  arms.  The  Great 
Sun  appeared  to  be  satisfied  with  this  explanation,  and 
ordered  them  to  be  released,  but  to  be  closely  watched. 
He  then  sent  for  one  of  the  female  prisoners,  a  woman 
by  the  name  of  Desnoyers,  and  said  to  her :  "  Write  to 
thy  great  war-chief,  that  if  he  wishes  for  peace,  and  de- 
sires that  all  the  French  prisoners  and  the  negroes  be 
restored  to  him,  he  must  send  me  for  every  one  of  them 
so  many  casks  of  brandy,  so  many  blankets,  muskets, 

shirts,  provisions,  <fec." He  wanted  so  many 

different  things,  and  in  such  quantity,  that  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  find  in  the  whole  colony  what 
he  had  the  presumption  to  ask,  even  if  it  had  been 
thought  to  be  an  act  of  expediency  and  of  good  policy 
to  yield  so  much  to  these  barbarians. 

Desnoyers  wrote  down  what  she  was  told,  and  availed 
herself  of  this  opportunity  to  inform  Loubois  of  the 
miserable  condition  in  which  the  French  captives  were, 
and  of  the  dangers  which  threatened  them.  She  did 
not  fail  to  communicate  all  she  knew  about  the  prepara- 


EXECUTION  OF  THE  SCOUTS.  427 

tions  the  Natchez  had  made  for  defense,  and  to  impart 
every  other  piece  of  intelligence  she  thought  might  be 
useful  to  the  French. 

The  Great  Sun  delivered  the  letter  to  one  of  Mes- 
plais'  companions,  and  ordered  him  to  carry  it  to  the 
French  chief  at  the  Tunicas,  and  to  inform  him  that  if 
a  favorable  answer  was  not  sent  back  in  three  days,  the 
hostages  whom  the  Natchez  had  in  their  possession, 
would  abide  the  consequences  of  their  anger  and  dis- 
appointment. Eagerly  did  the  French  emissary  ('epart 
on  his  mission,  and  "  even  without  looking  back,"  says 
Le  Page  du  Pratz.  So  active  did  he  prove  himself, 
that  he  arrived  on  that  same  day  at  the  Tunicas,  and 
handed  the  letter  to  Loubois,  who  vouchsafed  no  answer. 

While  the  Natchez  remained  in  the  expectation  of 
an  answer,  they  treated  their  prisoners  kindly,  but  on 
the  fourth  day  after  the  departure  of  the  French  emis- 
sary, the  Great  Sun,  having  given  up  all  hopes  of  his 
return,  flew  into  a  violent  passion,  and  sentenced  to 
death  the  three  other  Frenchmen.  Two  of  them,  one 
a  common  soldier,  and  the  other  an  officer  of  education 
and  birth,  by  the  name  of  St.  Amand,  were  killed  in- 
stantly, without  being  exposed  to  much  suffering.  Un- 
fortunately for  Mesplais,  he  had  made  himself  conspicu- 
ous in  some  of  the  preceding  wars  of  the  French  against 
the  Natchez,  and  he  had  been  for  the  Indians  an  object 
of  particular  notice,  on  account  of  the  long  flowing  hair 
which  curled  down  on  his  shoulders,  and  which  made 
it  a  very  desirable  scalp.  They  concentrated,  therefore, 
the  fury  of  their  revenge  on  such  a  well-known  warrior, 
and  swore  they  would  make  him  weep  like  a  woman. 
He  was  tied  to  the  celebrated  Indian  stake,  exquisitely 
tortured  during  three  days  and  three  nights,  and  died 
at  last,  after  having  exhibited  superhuman  fortitude, 
and  without  having  gratified  his  torturers  by  uttering 


4:28  FEARS  OF  THE  NATCHEZ. 

one  word  of  complaint.  All  the  Frenchwomen,  pris- 
oners among  the  Natchez  were  present,  and  kneeling 
round  the  miserable  victim  of  savage  ferocity,  addressed 
loud  prayers  to  heaven  during  all  the  time  that  the 
lingering  execution  lasted.  The  sufferer  never  shed  a 
tear,  nor  allowed  one  groan  to  escape  his  lips,  but,  oc- 
casionally, would  beg  the  Frenchwomen  for  water. 
That  was  a  boon,  however,  which  they  were  prevented 
from  giving.  It  was  a  horrific  spectacle,  and  a  minute 
description  of  it  would  convey  to  us  but  a  faint  idea  of 
the  hideous  reality,  and  of  the  appalling  dangers  to 
which  our  ancestors  were  exposed,  when  toiling  so  pain- 
fully to  prepare  for  us  the  peaceful  and  glorious  home 
which  we  now  enjoy. 

The  Avoyelles,  Tunicas,  and  other  small  nations,  had 
declared  themselves  against  the  Natchez,  and  were  har- 
assing them  by  partial  attacks  and  marauding  expedi- 
tions. Not  unmindful  of  the  threats  which  the  Choc- 
taw  delegation  had  made  against  them,  the  Natchez, 
coming  gradually  to  a  more  correct  appreciation  of 
their  situation,  began  to  feel  a  real  desire  to  accept,  or 
to  offer  reasonable  terms  of  peace.  Thus,  one  night, 
when  they  had  met  in  deliberation,  they  sent  for  a 
Frenchwoman  who  spoke  their  language  well,  and  they 
interrogated  her  on  the  practicability  of  a  peace  with 
her  nation.  "  Are  not  the  French  of  a  forgiving  na- 
ture," said  the  Great  Sun  to  her,  "  and  do  they  not 
often  embrace  their  enemies  and  eat  with  them,  after 
having  met  them  in  battle  ?"  The  Frenchwoman,  who 
was  greatly  frightened,  answered  that  her  countrymen 
were  as  mild  as  lambs,  although  rather  of  a  pugnacious 
temperament ;  that  they  would  frequently  feast  with 
their  enemies  before  fighting,  and  feast  again  with  them 
after  fighting ;  that  they  were  very  fond  of  such  alter- 
nate feastings  and  fightings,  and  were  of  all  people  the 


THEY  ARE  ATTACKED  BY  THE  CHOCTAWS       429 

most  easily  pacified.  She  was  skillful  enough  thus  to 
harp  on  the  right  cord,  and  the  Indians,  well  pleased 
with  her  answers,  dismissed  her  with  courtesy  from 
their  presence. 

In  spite,  or  perhaps  on  account  of  their  fears,  and  to 
lose  sight  of  their  anxieties,  the  Natchez  had  been  ca- 
rousing, almost  every  day,  since  the  destruction  of  the 
French  settlement.  The  temptation  was  too  strong  for 
them  to  resist,  when  they  had  in  their  possession  so 
much  liquor,  and  so  many  provisions  taken  from  the 
French  warehouses.  On  the  27th  of  January,  they 
were  feasting  on  the  banks  of  St.  Catherine's  creek, 
when  they  were  suddenly  attacked  by  the  Choctaws, 
headed  by  Le  Sueur.  Their  defeat  would  have  been 
complete,  if  those  negroes  who  had  joined  the  Natchez- 
in  the  massacre  of  the  French,  kad  not  fought  with  des- 
perate valor,  and,  by  their  fierce  resistance,  had  not 
given  time  to  their  Indian  allies  to  retire  within  the  two 
forts  they  had  prepared,  in  anticipation  of  the  expected 
war  which  they  knew  would  soon  burst  upon  them. 
But  the  Choctaws  killed  sixty  of  the  Natchez,  took 
from  fifteen  to  twenty  prisoners,  rescued  fifty-four 
French  women  and  children,  and  recovered  about  one 
hundred  of  the  negroes. 

On  the  8th  of  February,  half  of  the  French  forces 
arrived  at  Natchez,  and  joined  the  Choctaws  on  St. 
Catherine's  creek.  On  the  9th,  they  left  the  quarters 
of  the  Choctaws,  and  encamped  at  a  certain  distance 
nearer  the  Mississippi.  The  rest  of  the  army  came  up  on 
that  day,  which  was  spent  in  reconnoitering  and  skir- 
mishing with  the  Indians.  The  10th,  llth,  and  12th 
were  employed  in  carrying  the  artillery,  ammunition, 
and  provisions  from  the  boats  to  the  French  camp.  The 
13th  was  consumed  in  fruitless  parleying  with  the  Jn- 
dians,  in  approaching  nearer  to  the  forts,  and  in  trans- 


4:30  THE  NATCHEZ  BESIEGED  BY  THE 

porting  pieces  of  artillery  on  the  mound  on  which  stood 
the  Great  Temple,  and  which  happened  to  command 
the  two  forts.  The  French  protected  that  position 
with  intrenchments. 

On  the  14th,  at  daybreak,  the  French  opened  against 
the  forts  their  fire,  which  was  answered  briskly.  The 
four  pieces  of  artillery  which  the  French  had,  were 
hardly  fit  for  service,  and  were  wretchedly  managed. 
The  Natchez  had  three  pieces,  which  were  still  more 
clumsily  handled.  At  night,  the  Natchez  came  through 
a  cane-brake  to  dislodge  the  French  from  the  temple. 
But  some  grape  thrown  among  them  forced  them  to 
retreat. 

On  the  15th,  the  French,  at  the  distance  of  five  hun- 
.dred  and  sixty  yards,  cannonaded  the  forts  during  six 
hours,  without  throwing  down  one  single  stake,  and  the 
Choctaws,  to  whom  they  had  promised  to  make  a  breach 
in  less  than  two  hours,  became  discouraged,  and  hooted 
at  the  impotency  of  the  French  missiles. 

On  the  16th,  a  man  by  the  name  of  Du  Pare,  was 
sent  with  a  flag  to  summon  the  forts  to  surrender.  He 
was  received  with  a  general  discharge  of  musketry, 
which  made  him  scamper  away  in  such  haste  that  he 
left  behind  him  his  flag.  It  would  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  Indians,  had  not  a  soldier,  known  under 
the  nickname  of  the  Parisian,  run  to  the  spot  and  car- 
ried away  the  flag  under  a  heavy  fire  from  the  enemy. 
He  was  immediately  made  a  sergeant  as  a  reward  for 
his  valor.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  Parisian 
was  rushing  to  rescue  the  flag,  the  Indians  had  opened 
their  gates  to  make  a  sally  to  take  it.  Some  French- 
women availed  themselves  of  that  circumstance  to  rush 
out  pellmell  with  the  Indians,  and  succeeded  in  gam- 
ing the  French  camp.  But  the  Indians  avenged  them- 
selves for  their  escape  in  the  most  atrocious  manner 


FRENCH  AND  CHOCTAWS.  431 

The  poor  women  had  left  children  in  the  fort,  hoping 
that  they  would  be  taken  care  of  by  their  companions 
in  captivity.  The  Indians  seized  these  children,  and 
impaled  them  on  the  stakes  of  the  fort,  to  the  great 
horror  and  rage  of  the  French.  On  that  day,  an  addi- 
tional body  of  men  arrived  at  the  French  camp,  with 
four  pieces  of  artillery  quite  as  worthless  as  those  the 
besiegers  had  already.  Despairing  to  make  with  such 
artillery  any  impression  on  the  forts,  the  French  re- 
solved to  have  recourse  to  mining,  and  went  to  work 
accordingly.  Some,  more  impatient  and  more  intrepid 
than  the  rest,  oifered  to  rush  close  to  the  walls  and  to 
fling  grenades  into  the  forts,  but  Loubois  refused,  under 
the  apprehension  of  doing  as  much  injury  to  the  French 
captives  as  to  the  Indians. 

From  the  17th  to  the  22d  of  February,  the  French 
made  scientific  preparations  to  attack  the  forts,  and 
were  engaged  in  erecting  gabions  and  in  undermining. 
On  the  22d,  during  the  night,  one  hundred  Natchez 
attacked  the  French  works  in  front,  and  two  hundred 
in  the  rear,  under  the  protection  of  a  wild  cane-field 
through  which  they  had  approached.  They  broke 
through  the  mantelets,  penetrated  into  the  last  trench 
or  traverse,  and  assailed  with  fury  the  temple  and  the 
French  battery.  They  fought  with  desperation  during 
three  quarters  of  an  hour,  and  retired  with  considerable 
loss,  but  carrying  away  a  good  many  blankets,  spades, 
and  other  articles.  The  Choctaws  came  to  the  assist- 
ance of  the  French  with  great  readiness. 

On  the  23d,  the  Choctaws  threw  the  French  into 
consternation  by  threatening  to  withdraw,  if  the  siege 
was  not  carried  on  with  more  vigor.  This  representa- 
tion had  its  effect,  and  on  the  24th,  a  battery  of  four 
pieces  of  the  caliber  of  four  pounds  was  established  at 
three  hundred  and  sixty  yards  from  the  forts,  and  the 


432  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  SIEGE. 

French  informed  the  Natchez  that  they  were  deter- 
mined to  blow  them  tip  at  all  hazards  to  the  French 
captives,  if  they  did  not  surrender.  Intimidated  by  the 
more  active  preparations  made  by  the  French,  the 
Natchez  sent  one  of  their  female  captives,  Madame 
Desnoyers,  of  whom  it  has  already  been  spoken,  to 
make  propositions  of  peace.  But  she  remained  in  the 
French  camp,  and  no  answer  was  returned  to  the 
Natchez. 

On  the  25th,  the  Natchez  hoisted  a  flag  as  a  token 
that  they  wished  to  parley.  Alibamon  Mengo,  one  of 
the  most  famous  Choctaw  chiefs,  growing  impatient  at 
all  these  parleyings  which  never  had  any  result,  ap- 
proached one  of  the  forts,  and  addressed  this  harangue 
to  the  Natchez :  "  Did  you  ever  hear  that  such  a  nu- 
merous band  of  Indians  as  ours  ever  remained  together 
two  months  encamped  before  forts  ?  From  this  cir- 
cumstance so  foreign  to  our  customs  and  habits,  you 
may  judge  of  our  zeal  and  attachment  for  the  French. 
It  is  therefore  perfectly  useless  in  you,  who  are  but  a 
handful  of  people,  when  compared  to  our  nation,  to 
persist  in  refusing  to  give  up  to  the  French  their  wo- 
men, children,  and  negroes.  So  far,  the  French  have 
treated  you  with  more  leniency  than  you  deserve,  con- 
sidering the  quantity  of  their  blood  which  you  have 
shed.  As  to  us,  Choctaws,  we  are  determined  to 
blockade  you  until  you  die  of  hunger."  This  speech 
had  its  effect,  and  the  Natchez  promised  to  deliver  to 
the  Choctaws  all  the  captives,  provided  the  French 
would  remove  to  the  bank  of  the  river  with  their  artil- 
lery. This  was  done  on  the  26th,  and  thus  terminated 
the  siege.  The  French,  whose  numbers,  as  far  as  we 
can  judge  from  conflicting  statements,  amounted  to  five 
hundred,  lost  fifteen  men  daring  that  siege. 

The  cowardly  and  notorious  Ecte-Actal  acted  as  ne- 


CONCLUSION  OF  THE  SIEGE.  433 

gotiator  between  the  French  and  the  Indians,  and  it 
had  been  agreed  through  him  that  the  French  forces 
would,  as  I  have  already  said,  withdraw  to  the  bank  of 
the  river,  and  that  the  Natchez,  on  surrendering  to 
the  Choctaws  the  French  captives  and  spoils;  would 
remain  in  quiet  possession  of  their  lands  and  forts. 
This  treaty  was  nothing  but  the  embodiment  of  mutual 
deceit.  The  French  commander,  thinking  himself  ab- 
solved from  adherence  to  his  word  by  the  proverbial 
perfidy  of  the  Indians,  had  resolved  to  recommence 
the  siege,  and  to  complete  the  destruction  of  the  Nat- 
chez, immediately  after  having  got  the  French  prisoners 
out  of  their  hands ;  and  the  Natchez,  in  their  turn,  who 
did  not  trust  the  French,  had  made  up  their  minds  to 
fly  with  all  the  spoils  they  could  carry.  On  the  27th, 
they  delivered  to  the  Choctaws  all  the  French  women, 
children,  and  negroes,  and  in  the  night  of  the  28th, 
they  made  their  escape.  On  the  morning  of  the  29th, 
the  French,  much  to  their  surprise,  saw  the  forts  de- 
serted, and  found  in  them  nothing  but  worthless  rags. 
Thus  finished  this  expedition,  which  reflects  little  credit 
on  the  French  arms.  It  was  evidently  ill-concerted; 
the  French  ought  certainly  to  have  been  as  expeditious 
as  the  Choctaws,  and  to  have  arrived  at  the  same  time 
to  strike  a  crushing  blow  with  their  united  forces.  On 
the  contrary,  the  undisciplined  Choctaws,  who  had  to 
come  by  land  over  three  hundred  miles,  were  the  first 
in  the  field  and  on  the  spot,  and  there  had  to  wait 
about  fifteen  days  for  their  white  allies,  who,  when  they 
invested  at  last  the  forts  of  the  Natchez,  and  attacked 
with  light  pieces  of  artillery,  almost  worthless  it  is  true, 
and  with  five  hundred  men,  could  do  nothing  effective 
in  twenty  days.  In  the  end,  it  was  the  intervention  of 
the  Choctaws  which  succeeded  in  bringing  the  Natchez 
to  terms ;  it  was  to  the  Choctaws  and  not  to  the  French, 
cc 


434  COMMENTS  AND  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE 

that  tney  consented  to  give  up  their  prisoners ;  and 
then,  eluding  the  vigilance  of  the  French,  or  blinding 
them  by  the  influence  of  bribery  and  corruption,  they 
achieved  their  retreat  with  honor  and  without  the 
slightest  loss. 

Diron  d'Artaguette,  one  of  the  king's  commissaries, 
commenting  on  this  expedition  in  one  of  his  dispatches, 
reflects  severely  on  the  want  of  policy,  of  judgment, 
and  of  activity  exhibited  by  Perier  on  this  occasion. 
He  also  blames  Loubois  for  having  lost  so  many  days 
at  the  Tunicas,  where  he  stopped  so  long  under  the  ap- 
prehension of  a  general  conspiracy,  which,  if  he  moved 
forward,  would,  as  he  feared,  have  put  him  in  the 
awkward  position  of  having  the  Natchez  in  front  and 
other  hostile  nations  in  the  rear.  He  speaks  in  no 
measured  terms  of  what  he  calls  "  the  shameful  conclu- 
sion of  the  siege  f  and  says,  "the  Choctaws,  it  is 
alledged,  wanted  to  retire,  but  the  truth  is,  that  the 
French  army  was  the  first  to  give  up;  and  strange 
Btories  are  told  about  silver  plate,  and  other  valuable 
articles,  which  became  the  subjects  of  clandestine  trans- 
actions." He  thus  goes  on,  intimating  pretty  broadly 
that  the  Natchez  bribed  the  French  into  allowing  them 
to  escape. 

Governor  P&rier  says:  "Several  causes  have  pre- 
vented our  capturing  the  whole  Natchez  nation.  The 
first,  the  weakness  of  our  troops,  which  were  good  for 
nothing ;  the  second,  the  distrust  in  which  we  were  of 
the  Choctaws,  whom  we  suspected  of  treason.  This 
was  not  without  foundation;  for  the  Natchez,  dur- 
ing the  siege,  reproached  them  a  thousand  times  with 
their  perfidy,  after  having  joined  in  the  general  con- 
spiracy of  which  the  Natchez  related  the  circumstances 
to  us.  They  also  boasted  that  the  English  and  Chick- 
asaws  were  coming  to  their  rescue.  All  these  cir- 


RESULT  OF  THE  SIEGE  435 

cumstances,  which  were  not  encouraging  for  men  who 
had  but  little  experience,  forced  Loubois,  who  had 
served  with  distinction,  to  be  satisfied  with  the  surren- 
der of  our  women,  children,  and  negroes.  This  was  the 
essential  point.  D'Artaguette  (a  brother  of  the  com- 
missary of  that  name)  has  served  with  the  most  brilliant 
valor,  and  the  planters,  with  credit,  having  D'Arens- 
bourg  and  De  Laye  at  their  head.  The  Creoles  dis- 
tinguished themselves  particularly ;  all  the  officers  have 
done  their  duty,  with  the  exception  of  Renault  d'Hau- 
terive,  De  Mouy,  and  Villainville.  Ffteen  negroes,  in 
whose  hands  we  had  put  weapons,  performed  prodigies 
of  valor.  If  the  blacks  did  not  cost  so  much,  and  if 
their  labors  were  not  so  necessary  to  the  colony,  it 
would  be  better  to  turn  them  into  soldiers,  and  to  dis- 
miss those  we  have,  who  are  so  bad  and  so  cowardly 
that  they  seem  to  have  been  manufactured  purposely 
for  this  colony." 

The  Natchez,  on  leaving  their  forts  and  native  hills, 
crossed  the  Mississippi  to  take  refuge  among  the  Oua- 
chitas.  They  were  pursued  by  the  chief  of  the  Tunicas 
at  the  head  of  fifty  warriors,  who  kept  on  their  trail  in 
the  hope  of  picking  up  stragglers.  On  the  territory 
thus  abandoned  the  French  began  the  erection  of  a 
brick  fort,  the  command  of  which,  with  a  garrison  of 
one  hundred  men,  was  given  to  the  Baron  of  Cresnay, 
who  was  also  put  at  the  head  of  all  the  troops  in  Loui- 
siana, but  who  continued  to  act,  however,  in  a  subordi- 
nate capacity  to  Governor  Perier.  Loubois  was  re- 
warded for  his  successful  campaign  against  the  Natchez 
by  being  appointed  Major  and  Commander  of  New 
Orleans. 

When  the  French  and  their  red  allies  came  to  the 
settlement  of  their  accounts,  it  was  found  to  be  a  matter 
of  no  small  difficulty.  The  Choctaws  proved  to  be 


436    NEW  ORLEANS  ENCLOSED  AND  FORTS  ERECTED. 

more  exacting  in  their  pretensions  than  the  Natchez 
were,  in  relation  to  the  delivery  of  the  French  women, 
children,  and  negroes.  The  negotiation  waxed  so  hot, 
that  the  French  and  Indians  were  very  near  coming  to 
blows.  Harmony  was  at  last  restored  between  them, 
by  the  interference  of  the  chief  of  the  Tunicas.  The 
French  having  given  up  almost  every  thing  they  could 
part  with,  and  promised  much  more,  the  Choctaws  de- 
livered to  them  the  captives,  who  were  hastily  sent 
down  the  river,  to  remove  all  further  pretext  for  claim 
or  altercation.  The  Choctaws,  on  the  occasion  of  this 
war  between  the  French  and  Natchez,  behaved  with 
consummate  skill.  They  first  dealt  with  the  Natchez, 
and  put  up  their  alliance  with  them  at  the  highest  bid, 
and  after  playing  them  off  for  some  time  with  this  de- 
lusive hope,  and  extorting  from  them  every  thing  they 
could,  seeing  that  they  had  pumped  the  well  dry,  they 
turned  toward  the  French,  and  listened  to  their  over- 
tures, of  which  they  made  the  most  to  their  own  ad- 
vantage. So  that  this  war  ruined  the  Natchez,  em- 
poverished  the  French,  and  enriched  only  the  Choc- 
taws. Thus  it  appears,  that,  in  diplomacy  at  least,  and 
in  national  egotism,  they  were  not  far  behind  the  most 
civilized  nations  of  modern  times. 

Governor  Perier  availed  himself  of  the  fears  of  the 
colonists,  to  push  on  with  activity  the  enclosing  of  the 
city  of  New  Orleans, — and  between  Natchez  and  New 
Orleans,  he  established  eight  small  forts,  as  guarantees 
of  protection,  and  places  of  refuge  in  case  of  need.  He 
also  took  measures  to  cause  all  the  small  nations  which 
dwelt  between  the  Balize  and  Natchez,  to  remove  with- 
in the  year,  with  the  exception  of  the  Tunicas,  who  had 
given  so  many  proofs  of  attachment  to  the  French. 

The  poor  victims  of  the  Natchez  massacre  were  re- 
ceived at  New  Orleans  with  great  humanity,  and  enter- 


DEATH  OF  DE  LA  CHAISE.  43T 

tained  at  the  public  expense  in  the  Charity  Hospital, 
where  they  were  nursed  by  the  Ursulines  with  zeal. 
De  la  Chaise  made  a  generous  use  of  the  extensive  au- 
thority with  which  he  was  clothed,  to  satisfy  all  their 
wants.  Many  of  the  widows  were  soon  married,  and 
concessions  of  lands  were  made  to  them  at  Point  Coupee, 
where  most  of  them  ultimately  settled. 

Forgetting,  it  seems,  Chopart's  provocations,  Gover- 
nor Perier,  in  his  dispatches,  and  the  other  French  offi- 
cers, all  agreed  in  taxing  the  English  with  having  in- 
stigated and  provoked  the  war  of  the  Natchez.  "  The 
English  know,"  says  Perier,  "  that  we  are  the  only  bar- 
riers between  them  and  Mexico,  and  that  their  taking 
possession  of  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  would  soon 
be  followed  by  their  occupation  of  the  Spanish  col- 
onies." Thus  what  has  happened  one  century  later, 
was  distinctly  foreseen  in  1730. 

This  year,  the  colony  lost  De  la  Chaise,  one  of  the 
worthiest  men  it  had  yet  possessed.  He  left  a  name 
deservedly  popular  among  the  people,  for  unflinching 
integrity,  and  for  the  impartiality  with  which  he  check- 
ed abuses  of  power,  and  punished  delinquencies  among 
those  who  hitherto  had  always  been  sure  of  impunity. 
His  sudden  death  gave  rise  to  some  dark  rumors  of  his 
having  been  poisoned  by  those  who  had  cause  to  fear 
his  investigations.  These  rumors  were  long  rife  in 
the  colony.  After  having  passed  a  panegyric  on  his 
virtues,  Le  Page  du  Pratz  concludes  by  saying,  "  Those 
orphans  and  widows  who  escaped  from  the  Natchez 
massacre,  would  be  extremely  ungrateful  if  they  did 
not,  during  all  their  life,  pray  for  the  soul  of  that  good 
and  charitable  man." 

On  the  1st  of  August,  Governor  Perier  wrote: 
"  Those  of  the  Indians  who  had  entered  into  the  gen- 
eral conspiracy,  have,  since  its  failure,  come  back  to  us, 


438  PERIER'S  CRUELTY  TO  THE  NATCHEZ. 

and  now  help  us  in  daily  harassing  the  Natchez,  who 
have  crossed  the  Mississippi,  and  retired  into  the  inte- 
rior of  the  country.  Since  their  flight,  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  having  fifty  of  them  either  killed  or  taken 
prisoners.  Latterly,  I  burned  Ji&re  four  men,  and  two 
women,  and  sent  the  rest  to  St.  Domingo : — two  hundred 
and  fifty  warriors  of  the  friendly  nations,  have  been  dis- 
patched by  me,  to  watch  and  blockade  the  Natchez, 
until  we  receive  more  troops  from  France." 

The  burning  of  two  women  and  of  four  men  was 
done,  no  doubt,  in  retaliation  of  Indian  atrocities.  But 
this  imitation  of  their  barbarous  manners  could  do  no 
good.  It  was  not  only  an  act  of  useless  cruelty,  but  of 
exceedingly  bad  policy.  It  could  not  serve  as  a  check, 
because  it  could  not  intimidate  men  who  gloried  in 
such  practices.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  have  looked, 
in  the  estimation  of  the  Indians,  as  an  approval  of  their 
national  custom,  by  a  people  who  pretended  to  be  so 
much  more  enlightened,  and  therefore  it  must  have 
operated  as  an  incentive,  or  encouragement.  But  what 
is  remarkable  and  characteristic  is  the  cool,  business- 
like indifference,  and  the  matter  of  fact  tone  with  which 
Governor  Perier  informs  his  government  of  the  auto- 
da-fe  which  has  taken  place  by  his  orders.  He  writes 
on  the  burning  of  four  men  and  two  women  with  as 
much  unconcern,  as  a  cook  would  about  the  roasting  of 
a  leg  of  mutton  ! 

Although  scattered  about,  the  Natchez  did  not  cease 
to  make  the  French  feel  occasionally,  that  they  were 
not  all  exterminated.  One  day,  they  fell  on  twenty 
Frenchmen,  who  were  cutting  timber  in  a  cypress 
swamp,  to  be  used  in  the  fort  they  were  constructing, 
.and  they  killed  nineteen,  among  whom  was  "  the  Pa- 
risian? who  had  so  much  distinguished  himself  during 
the  siege.  Another  day,  six  Natchez  warriors  had  the 


MACHINATIONS  OF  THE  CHICKASAWS.  439 

hardihood  to  penetrate,  under  the  garb  of  friendly 
Indians,  into  the  fort  itself,  and  while  there,  they  rush- 
ed, with  the  fury  of  mad  despair  and  revenge,  on  the 
French,  of  whom  they  killed  five,  and  wounded  many 
more.  Five  of  these  dare-devils  were  killed  after  a 
desperate  fight,  and  the  sixth,  being  taken  prisoner,  was 
burnt. 

A  few  days  after,  the  Tunicas  carried  to  New  Orleans 
a  Natchez  woman  they  had  captured,  and  Governor 
Perier  allowed  them  to  bum  her  in  great  ceremony  on  a 
platform  erected  in  front  of  the  city,  between  the  city 
and  the  Levee.  I  regret  to  relate  that  the  whole  popula- 
tion of  New  Orleans  turned  out  to  witness  that  Indian 
ceremony.  The  victim  supported,  with  the  most  stoical 
fortitude,  all  the  tortures  which  were  inflicted  upon  her, 
and  did  not  shed  a  tear, — on  the  contrary,  she  upbraid- 
ed her  torturers  with  their  want  of  skill,  and  flinging 
at  them  every  opprobrious  epithet  she  could  think  of, 
she  prophesied  their  speedy  destruction,  Her  predic- 
tion proved  true: — the  Tunicas  had  hardly  returned 
home,  when  they  were  surprised  by  the  Natchez,  their 
village  burnt,  their  old  chief,  the  constant  ally  of  the 
French,  killed,  and  almost  their  whole  nation,  de- 
stroyed. 

These  deeds  of  so  much  daring  show  the  state  of 
desperation  to  which  the  Indians  had  been  reduced, 
and  their  thirst  for  revenge.  They  were  executed  by  a 
part  of  that  nation  which  had  taken  refuge  among  the 
Chickasaws,  while  the  French  had  thought  that  the 
whole  nation  had  crossed  the  Mississippi,  and  gone  over 
to  Black  River. 

The  Chickasaws,  having  thus  granted  an  asylum  to 
the  Natchez,  foresaw  that  they  would  be  attacked  in 
their  turn,  and  sought  to  anticipate  the  blow,  by  stir- 
ring up  the  Indian  nations  against  the  French,  and  by 


440  THE  PRINCIPAL  OFFICERS 

exciting  the  blacks  to  revolt.  Fortunately,  the  con- 
spiracy of  the  blacks  was  discovered  in  time;  one 
woman  was  hung,  and  eight  men  broken  on  the  wheel, 
among  whom  was  a  negro  of  the  name  of  Samba,  who 
was  at  the  head  of  the  conspirators,  and  who  was  a  man 
of  the  most  desperate  character.  The  majority  of  the 
negroes  then  in  the  colony  were  Banbaras,  and  they 
were  the  concocters  of  the  rebellion.  Their  plan 
was,  after  having  butchered  the  whites,  to  keep  as  their 
slaves  all  the  blacks  who  were  not  of  their  nation,  and 
to  rule  the  country  under  leaders  periodically  elected. 
It  would  have  been  a  sort  of  Banbara  republic. 

All  these  events,  crowding  upon  each  other,  had  kept 
the  colonists  in  a  constant  fever  of  fearful  excitement. 
Their  apprehensions  were  a  little  allayed  by  the  arrival, 
on  the  10th  of  August,  of  a  small  additional  corps  of 
troops,  commanded  by  De  Salverte,  a  brother  of  Perier ; 
so  that  the  forces  of  the  colony  could  then  be  set  down 
at  about  one  thousand  to  twelve  hundred  regulars,  and 
eight  hundred  militiamen.  It  would  have  been  a  pretty 
effective  force,  if  it  could  have  been  kept  concentrated, 
instead  of  being  scattered  in  distant  settlements. 

The  principal  officers  who  were  then  in  active  service 
in  Louisiana,  were  the  following : — 

THE  CHEVALIER  DE  LOUBOIS,  D'HATJTERIVE, 

THE  BARON  OF  CRESNAY,  DE  LTJSSER, 

THE  CHEVALIER  DE  NOYAN,  PETIT  DE  LIEULLIERS, 

DE  ST.  JULIEN,  SlMARE  DE  BELLEISLE, 

D'ARENSBOURG,  MARIN  DE  LA  TOUR, 

D'ARTAGUETTE,  DE  GRANDPRE, 

DE  BEAUCHAMP,  THE  CHEVALIER  D'HERNEUVILLK, 

DE  BESSAN,  DE  L'ANGLOISERIE, 

DE  ST.  DENIS,  DE  ST.  ANGE, 

DE  G-AUVRIT7  DE  LABRUISSONNIERE, 

DE  PRADEL,       9  DE  COULANGES. 

DE  COURCELLES, 


IN  LOUISIANA.  441 

They  were,  all  of  them,  aristocratic  scions  of  noble  <- 
houses,  who  had  come  to  better  their  fortunes  in  Louis- 
iana, and  with  the  hope  of  more  rapid  advancement  in 
their  military  career,  on  account  of  the  dangers  of  the 
colonial  service,  in  which,  for  that  reason,  years  counted 
double  for  the  army,  either  for  promotion,  or  in  support 
of  an  application  for  a  retiring  pension. 


SIXTH  LECTURE. 

EXPEDITION  OF  PERIER  AGAINST  THE  NATCHEZ — HE  GOES  UP  RED  RIVER  AND 
BLACK  RIVER  IN  PURSUIT  OF  THEM — SIEGE  OF  THEIR  FORT — MOST  OF  THEM  ARE 
TAKEN  PRISONERS  AND  SOLD  AS  SLAVES — CONTINUATION  OF  THE  NATCHEZ  WAR — 
THE  INDIA  COMPANY  SURRENDERS  ITS  CHARTER  —  ORDINANCES  ON  THE  CUR- 
RENCY OF  THE  COUNTRY — BIENVILLE  REAPPOINTED  GOVERNOR — SITUATION  OF  THE 
COLONY  AT  THAT  TIME — THE  NATCHEZ  TAKE  REFUGE  AMONG  THE  CHICKASAWS 
GREAT  RISE  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  AND  GENERAL  INUNDATION  —  EXTRAORDINARY 
NUMBER  OF  MAD  DOGS— EXPEDITION  OF  BIENVILLE  AGAINST  THE  CHICKASAWS — 

HE  ATTACKS  THEIR  VILLAGES BATTLE  OF  AcKIA — DARING  EXPLOIT  OF  THK 

BLACK  MAN,  SlMON BlENVILLE  IS  BEXTEN  AND  FORCED  TO  RETREAT — ExPEDlTION 

OF  D'ARTAGUETTE  AGAINST  THE  CHICKASAWS  —  His  DEFEAT  AND  DEATH — 
HISTORY  OF  JOHN  PHILIP  GRONDEL — OTHER  EVENTS  AND  FACTS  FROM  1729  TO 
1736. 

THE  French  had  at  last  taken  possession  of  all  the 
ancient  domains  of  the  Natchez ;  but  Governor  Perier, 
considering  the  depredations  still  committed  by  that 
indomitable  tribe,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  their 
complete  destruction  was  indispensable  to  the  prosper- 
ity and  safety  of  the  colony.  Accordingly,  he  departed 
for  Mobile,  to  renew  treaties  of  alliance  which  the 
French  had  with  the  Choctaws,  and  to  take  all  the 
measures  necessary  to  secure  their  neutrality,  while  he 
would  be  engaged  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  of  ex- 
termination he  had  determined  to  carry  against  the 
Natchez.  The  Choctaws  were  so  much  pleased  with 
the  presents  made  to  them  by  Perier,  that  they  offered 
to  join  him  in  the  new  expedition  he  meditated  against 
the  Natchez.  But  Perier  refused,  because  he  thought 
it  good  policy  to  show  the  Choctaws  that  the  French 
could,  contrary  to  the  belief  of  these  barbarians,  do 
very  well  without  their  aid. 


PERIER  HEADS  AN  EXPEDITION  AGAINST  THE  NATCHEZ.     443 

On  the  13th  of  November,  1730,  Perier  returned  to 
New  Orleans,  where  he  found  that  his  brother  Salverte 
had  almost  completed  all  the  preparations  necessary  for 
the  contemplated  expedition.  On  the  9th  of  December, 
Salverte  departed  with  two  battalions  of  marines  he 
had  taken  from  a  ship  of  the  line,  with  instructions  to 
wait  for  the  governor  at  the  village  of  Carlestin,  where 
he  was  joined,  on  the  13th,  by  that  high  functionary, 
with  all  the  ammunition,  provisions,  <fec.,  which  were 
required,  and  all  the  troops  of  the  colony  which  could 
be  spared. 

Before  proceeding  farther,  Perier  received  the  grate- 
ful intelligence  that  the  Indian  nations  on  the  northern 
frontiers  had  remained  faithful  to  the  French,  and  were 
waging  vigorous  war  against  the  nation  of  the  Foxes, 
the  hereditary  foes  of  the  Illinois,  whose  friendship  to 
the  French  had  made  them  valuable  allies  on  all  occa- 
sions. Perier  was  officially  informed  that  a  great  bat- 
tle had  taken  place  between  the  Foxes  and  the  Illinois, 
headed  by  some  Frenchmen ;  and  that  the  Foxes  had 
been  so  completely  routed,  that  they  had  lost  from 
eleven  to  twelve  hundred  men.  It  was  one  of  the 
fiercest  Indian  battles  which  was  ever  put  on  record. 

On  the  14th,  Governor  Perier  proceeded  to  Baya- 
goulas,  where  he  stopped  four  days  to  wait  for  the  di- 
vision of  planters  commanded  by  Benac,  and  for  the 
larger  boats  which  contained  the  provisions,  and  which 
were  so  unwieldy  that  they  could  not  keep  up  with  the 
army.  The  governor  had  divided  his  army  into  three 
corps,  in  order  to  prevent  conflicts  and  to  produce  emu- 
lation. The  first,  composed  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
marines  and  forty  sailors,  was  commanded  by  his  brother 
Salverte.  The  second,  consisting  of  the  troops  of  the 
colony,  was  under  the  Baron  of  Cresnay ;  and  the  third, 
the  militia,  was  headed  by  Benac.  This  last  corps 


4:44  FEARS  OF  THE  TUNICAS. 

joined  the  rest,  only  at  Bayagoulas,  on  the  19th ;  the 
whole  army  moved  forward  on  the  22d,  and  on  the 
same  day  encamped  at  Manchac  for  the  night.  There, 
Perier  left  the  army,  and  hastened  to  the  Tunicas,  in 
order  to  accelerate  the  movements  of  such  of  the  war- 
riors of  that  tribe  as  had  survived  the  defeat  they  had 
suffered  from  the  Natchez.  On  the  27th,  Salverte,  to 
whom  Perier  had  left  the  command  of  the  army,  joined 
his  brother  at  the  Tunicas. 

On  the  28th,  the  army  began  its  march  for  the  mouth 
of  Red  River,  where  was  the  general  rendezvous,  and 
where  the  ship,  Prince  of  Conti,  had  been  sent  with 
most  of  the  articles  necessary  for  the  campaign.  Perier 
remained  until  the  3d  of  January,  1731,  with  the  Tuni- 
cas, where  his  presence  was  required  to  make  them  join 
the  expedition ;  which  they  were  loth  to  do,  because 
they  were  afraid  to  leave  their  village,  their  women 
and  children,  exposed  to  the  fury  of  some  of  the  ma- 
rauding parties  of  the  Natchez.  They  had  indeed  good 
reasons  for  apprehension,  having  just  been  informed 
that  De  Coulanges,  whom  Pe"rier  had  sent  in  a  boat, 
with  some  Frenchmen  and  a  crew  of  twenty  men  com- 
posed of  Indians  and  free  blacks,  to  the  fort  lately  built 
at  Natchez,  with  orders  to  proceed  as  high  up  the  river 
as  the  Arkansas,  had  been  attacked,  and  that  half  of 
his  companions  had  been  killed  or  wounded.  De  la 
Touche,  Beaulieu,  and  Cochart  were  among  the  former, 
and  De  Coulanges  had  received  two  severe  wounds. 
This  bold  attack  on  the  part  of  the  Natchez  had  fright- 
ened all  the  small  nations,  and  Perier  could  not  gather 
round  him  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  their 
warriors,  but  they  were  of  the  bravest. 

On  the  4th  of  January,  1731,  Perier  joined  the  army 
at  the  mouth  of  Red  River,  where  he  found  all  his 
forces  united.  The  difficulty  then  was  to  discover  the 


THE  FRENCH  ARRIVE  AT  THE  NATCHEZ'  STRONGHOLD.    445 

stronghold  where  the  Natchez  had  concealed  them- 
selves in  those  unknown  regions.  The  French  ascended 
Red  River,  went  into  Black  River,  from  Black  River 
into  a  stream  they  called  Silver  River,  and  from  that 
stream  into  a  small  lake,  not  far  from  which  they  had 
been  told  the  Natchez  were.  It  is  not  improbable  that 
the  stream  which  is  here  mentioned  is  no  other  than 
the  one  now  set  down  on  the  map  as  the  Ouachita,  and 
that  the  lake  alluded  to  is  the  small  one  which  is  at  a 
short  distance  from  Trinity,  in  the  parish  of  Catahoula. 
The  French  arrived  at  tha{,  lake  on  the  19th  of  January, 
after  having  met  on  that  day  a  party  of  Natchez,  of 
whom  they  killed  two  men  and  one  woman.  There, 
the  French  had  happened  to  come  very  close  to  the 
stronghold  of  the  Natchez,  without  as  yet  being  aware 
of  it.  But  on  the  20th,  they  captured  a  Natchez  boy, 
who  was  fishing,  and  who,  under  the  influence  of  threats 
and  promises  of  reward,  showed  the  French  the  path 
which  led  to  the  Indian  fort.  Governor  Perier  sent 
forward  French  and  Indian  scouts  and  marksmen,  sup- 
ported by  two  companies  of  regulars  commanded  by  De 
Lusser  and  De  la  Girouardiere.  He  next  followed  with 
the  rest  of  the  army,  after  having  left  behind  the  Baron 
of  Cresnay  with  one  hundred  men,  to  protect  the  French 
camp  and  boats. 

Governor  Perier  had  hardly  given  the  order  to  march, 
when  he  heard  a  brisk  fire  of  musketry  kept  up  between 
the  fort  and  the  skirmishers.  After  having  marched  an 
hour,  the  army  came  in  sight  of  the  fort.  The  Tunicas 
attacked  some  fortified  houses  which  seemed  to  be  in- 
tended as  outposts,  and  drove  the  Natchez  out  of  them. 
On  the  21st,  when  the  fort  was  completely  invested,  Pe- 
rier ordered  the  Baron  of  Cresnay  to  join  him.  He 
then  sent  a  flag  to  the  Natchez,  and  summoned  them 
to  give  up  the  negroes  who  remained  in  their  posses- 


446  THE  NATCHEZ  PROPOSE  PEACE. 

sion.  The  Natchez  fired  at  the  flag,  crying  out  that 
the  French  were  dogs,  and  that  they  would  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  them.  On  this  answer,  the  French 
began  to  cast  grenades  into  the  fort,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded in  producing  considerable  effect,  when  the  two 
mortars  which  they  used,  being  of  wood,  bursted,  and 
wounded  those  who  worked  them.  At  half-past  five 
in  the  evening,  the  Natchez  made  a  sally,  in  which  they 
killed  a  negro,  a  grenadier  of  the  marines,  and  wounded 
a  sergeant  and  De  Laye,  one  of  the  militia  officers.  At 
eight  o'clock  the  same  evening,  although  the  weather 
was  very  stormy,  the  French  began  to  mine,  and  kept 
up  their  firing  with  muskets,  one  field-piece,  and  one 
mortar,  which  was  their  last  one,  and  for  which  they 
had  sent  to  the  boats.  The  Natchez  still  retained  pos- 
session of  a  fortified  outpost,  which  enfiladed  the  French 
workmen  engaged  in  the  trenches.  On  the  22d,  Perier 
ordered  it  to  be  attacked  by  twelve  grenadiers  and 
twelve  sappers.  But  on  their  being  repulsed,  he  sent 
his  brother,  who  carried  it  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  after 
a  vigorous  defense  made  by  the  Indians. 

On  the  23d,  the  French,  under  the  protection  of  the 
redoubt  they  had  taken  from  the  Natchez,  pushed  on 
their  trenches  with  more  vigor,  and  approached  more 
closely  to  the  fort. 

On  the  24th,  the  Natchez,  perceiving  that  the  French 
were  preparing  to  storm  the  fort,  and  fearing  the  re- 
sult, made  propositions  of  peace.  Perier  answered  that 
he  would  hold  no  communication  with  them,  unless  they 
did,  as  a  preliminary  proceeding,  deliver  up  all  the  black 
slaves  they  had  in  their  possession,  and  unless  their 
chiefs  came  out  to  have  a  personal  interview  with  him, 
midway  between  the  fort  and  the  camp.  The  Natchez 
immediately  gave  up  nineteen  negroes  and  one  negress, 
and  said  that  there  remained  only  six  negroes,  who  had 


SURRENDER  OF  THEIR  FORT,  AND  ESCAPE.  447 

gone  out  on  a  hunting  excursion  with  some  of  their 
people.  After  much  hesitation,  founded  on  misgivings 
which  proved  to  be  correct,  it  was  also  agreed  that 
Perier's  other  demand  should  be  complied  with ;  and 
the  Great  Sun,  the  Little  Sun,  and  the  chief  of  the*  Corn 
Village  came  out,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  to 
meet  the  French  chief.  After  the  usual  exchange  of 
mutual  salutations  had  taken  place,  as  it  began  to  rain, 
Perier  proposed  to  the  Indian  chiefs  to  enter  into  a 
cabin  close  by,  which  seemed  to  be  deserted,  but  as 
soon  as  they  crossed  its  threshold,  they  were  surrounded 
by  armed  soldiers,  and  made  prisoners.  Night  came 
on,  the  bad  weather  increased,  and,  at  twelve  o'clock, 
had  become  a  frightful  tempest.  The  chief  of  the 
Corn  Village  availed  himself  of  that  circumstance,  and, 
although  shut  up  in  a  tent  under  the  guard  of  twelve 
men,  contrived  to  escape,  without  being  hurt  by  the 
shots  which  were  aimed  at  him. 

On  the  25th,  the  storm  continued  to  rage,  and  inter- 
fered very  much  with  the  evacuation  of  the  fort,  and 
the  complete  surrender  of  the  Natchez,  which  at  last 
had  been  agreed  upon.  However,  in  the  course  of  the 
day,  forty-five  men,  and  four  hundred  and  fifty  women 
and  children  were,  at  different  intervals,  delivered  up  to 
the  French,  with  all  their  baggage  and  effects.  But 
night  having  set  in,  the  rest  of  the  Natchez  made  a  sud- 
den sally,  and  taking  the  French  by  surprise,  made 
their  escape  without  one  shot  being  fired  at  them,  so 
dark  the  night  was,  so  deluge-like  the  rain,  and  so  little 
disposed  were  the  French,  and  even  their  red  allies,  to 
move  from  their  quarters,  and  to  expose  themselves  to 
the  pitiless  fury  of  the  elements.  The  next  morn 
ing,  only  two  sick  men  and  one  woman  were  found  in 
the  fort.  Perier  says,  in  one  of  his  dispatches,  that 
the  party  that  thus  eluded  his  vigilance  and  effected 


448  THE  NATCHEZ  PRISONERS  SOLD  AS  SLAVES. 

such  a  successful  retreat,  in  front  of  such  overwhelming 
odds,  consisted  only  of  sixteen  men  and  four  women. 
But  this  was  a  willful  misrepresentation  of  the  truth,  the 
object  of  which  was  to  conceal  his  humiliation,  and  to 
impress  his  government  with  the  belief  that  his  success 
had  been  greater  than  it  really  was.  It  is  not  at  all 
probable  that  the  place  where  the  Great  Sun  had  taken 
refuge  with  so  many  women  and  children,  was  defend- 
ed only,  according  to  Perier's  statement,  by  about  sixty 
warriors.  Other  accounts  inform  us,  that  the  number 
of  warriors  who  thus  baffled  him,  and  slipped  from  his 
grasp,  exceeded  one  hundred  and  fifty.  Perier  having, 
the  next  morning,  sent  his  Indian  allies  in  pursuit,  they 
killed  one  Natchez,  and  took  two  whom  they  burned 
at  the  stake. 

On  the  26th  and  27th,  the  army  was  employed  in 
demolishing  the  fort,  with  its  fortified  outposts,  and  in 
burning  all  their  materials.  On  the  28th,  the  French 
began  their  retrograde  march,  and  encamped  on  the 
bank  of  Silver  Bayou,  or  river.  On  the  29th,  they 
embarked  to  return  to  the  Mississippi,  through  Black 
River  and  Red  River.  In  one  of  his  dispatches,  Perier 
bestows  much  praise  on  the  conduct  of  all  the  men  he 
had  under  his  orders,  and  speaks  in  high  terms  of  the 
emulation  which  existed  among  the  several  corps.  But 
he  skips  very  lightly  over  the  manner  in  which  he 
made  the  Indian  chiefs  prisoners.  He,  no  doubt,  felt 
that  it  was  a  shameful  breach  of  faith,  the  mention  of 
which  would  make  him  blush,  and  provoke  indignation. 
However,  he  was  a  man  of  no  half-way  measures,  and 
at  least  not  over-scrupulous  in  his  dealings  with  the 
Indians.  As  soon  as  he  reached  New  Orleans,  he  sent 
the  Great  Sun,  the  Little  Sun,  the  forty-five  other  male 
prisoners  and  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  women  and 
children  to  St.  Domingo,  where  they  were  sold  as  slaves. 


DEPREDATIONS  OF  THE  SURVIVORS.  449 

Among  them  was  the  princess  "Bras  pique"  who  re- 
lated all  the  circumstances  of  the  conspiracy  of  the 
Natchez,  in  which  she  acted  a  part  so  friendly  to  the 
French. 

With  such  stakes  in  his  hands,  it  would  seem  that 
Perier  might  have  played  a  better  game  with  the  Nat- 
chez, and  have  induced  them  to  emigrate  far  beyond  the 
French  settlements,  as  a  condition  of  his  restoring  to 
them  their  sovereign,  their  women  and  children.  It  is 
likely  that  these  would  have  been  considerations  suffi- 
ciently powerful,  to  make  them  subscribe  to  all  the  con- 
ditions which  would  have  been  deemed  necessary  to  se- 
cure the  future  tranquillity  of  the  colony. 

However,  a  different  course  of  policy  was  pursued, 
and  entailed  upon  the  French  a  long  train  of  ever- 
reviving  difficulties.  The  Natchez,  driven  by  their  losses 
to  the  last  stage  of  despair,  instead  of  being  cowed, 
were  nerved  to  frenzy  by  their  misfortunes.  They 
thought  of  nothing  but  revenge,  cost  what  it  might,  and 
they  committed  more  depredations  than  during  the 
past.  Diron  d'Artaguette,  in  one  of  his  dispatches, 
said  that  the  Natchez,  far  from  being  destroyed  as  it 
had  been  represented,  numbered  still  three  hundred 
warriors,  who  had  escaped  from  the  grasp  of  the 
French,  and  who  panted  for  their  blood.  After  their 
last  defeat  near  Black  River,  some  of  the  scattered  rem- 
nants of  that  tribe  having  incorporated  themselves  with 
the  Chickasaws,  were  incessantly  engaged  in  maraud- 
ing expeditions  directed  against  their  white  foes.  In 
the  month  of  April,  1731,  they  attacked  four  boats 
which  Governor  Perier  had  sent  up  to  Arkansas.  At 
the  first  fire  from  the  Indians,  the  commanding  officer 
had  two  of  his  men  killed  and  two  wounded,  and  al- 
though he  had  seventy  men  under  his  orders,  so  numer- 
ous were  the  Indians,  that  he  was  obliged  to  fall  back, 

DD 


450  BEAUCHAMFS  VIEWS  ON  THE 

and  to  avoid  the  contest.  Governor  Perier  having  sent 
an  emissary  to  the  Chickasaws  to  demand  of  them, 
that  they  should  dismiss  the  Natchez  under  pain  of  his 
displeasure,  these  Indians  answered  proudly  that  they 
would  know  how  to  protect  those  to  whom  the  hos- 
pitality of  their  tribe  had  been  tendered  and  pledged. 
Thus,  a  Chickasaw  war  had  risen  from  the  ashes  of  the 
Natchez  war.  Attempts  were  made  to  induce  the 
Choctaws  to  pronounce  themselves  against  the  Chick- 
asaws.  "But,"  said  Diron  d'Artaguette  on  this  sub- 
ject, "  how  can  we  ever  succeed,  when  we  have  nothing 
in  our  possession  to  tempt  those  Indians  to  become  our 
allies,  when  AVC  are  without  resources,  without  pro- 
visions, and  have  every  thing  to  fear." 

Beauchamp,  who  commanded  at  Mobile,  writing  to 
his  government  on  this  matter,  expressed  himself  thus : 
"  The  Choctaws  are  not  disposed  favorably,  which  is 
the  more  to  be  regretted  from  the  fact  that,  should  this 
nation  declare  itself  against  us,  we  should  be  obliged  to 
abandon  the  colony,  provided  however  we  had  time  to 
do  so.  Since  the  departure  of  Bienville,  all  the  In- 
dians are  spoiled.  In  spite  of  the  augmentation  of 
merchandise  we  have  to  supply  them  with,  and  of  the 
reduction  in  the  quantity  of  furs  which  they  give  us 
back  in  return,  they  are  not  satisfied.  On  the  contrary, 
they  are  insolent  and  less  tractable.  Our  war  with  the 
Natchez  was  a  source  of  vexation  and  danger  only  to 
our  traders  on  the  Mississippi,  but  the  Chickasaw  war 
is  a  cause  of  uneasiness  and  apprehension  to  the  whole 
colony.  These  Indians  had  sent  three  emissaries  to  the 
Illinois  to  urge  them  to  side  against  us,  but  these  emis- 
saries have  been  delivered  into  our  hands,  and  M. 
Perier  intends  to  have  them  burnt." 

To  increase  the  troubles  of  the  French,  the  Ali- 
bamons  and  Talapouches,  at  the  instigation  of  the 


SITUATION  OF  THE  COLONY.  451 

Chickasaws,  who  had  gone  over  to  the  British  interest, 
had  been  on  the  eve  of  declaring  themselves  against  the 
Choctaws,  who  were  the  only  allies  whose  assistance 
the  French  hoped  to  have.  "If  such  an  event  had 
taken  place,"  continues  Beauchainp,  "  the  colony  would 
have  been  on  fire.  The  English  are  evidently  gaining 
ground  upon  us."  He  then  goes  on  inveighing  bitterly 
against  Perier's  administration,  and  the  system  of  pol- 
icy this  officer  had  assumed  toward  the  Indians.  In 
conclusion,  he  says :  "  The  evil  is  now  without  a  remedy, 
unless  M.  de  Bienville  could  come  back.  Perhaps  he 
could  succeed  in  changing  the  state  of  things,  on  ac- 
count of  the  consideration  which  the  Indians  have  al- 
ways had  for  him,  and  of  the  services  which  he  has 
rendered  them,  particularly  to  the  Choctaws." 

After  a  minute  description  of  the  situation  of  the 
colony,  Beauchamp  closes  thus  his  remarks  to  the  min- 
ister: "You  see  to  what  a  state  of  things  is  reduced 
this  colony,  which  has  so  long  been  groaning  under  a 
harsh  command.  The  colonists  are  in  a  miserably 
wretched  condition,  and  are  ill  supplied  with  the  pro- 
visions and  the  merchandise  they  want.  When  flour 
is  sent  here,  the  heads  of  the  colony  take  hold  of  it,  as 
they  do  with  all  the  brandy  and  cordials  which  are  im- 
ported, and  they  do  not  part  with  these  articles  except 
at  exorbitant  prices.  It  is,  after  all,  what  they  do  for 
every  sort  of  merchandise.  The  soldiers,  also,  have 
always  had  just  causes  of  complaint  against  the  company 
with  regard  to  their  food  and  clothing.  I  need  not 
speak  of  the  enormous  profits  made  by  the  company  on 
every  thing  of  which  it  permitted  the  sale  in  the  col- 
ony." This  compendious  but  graphic  description  is 
sufficient  to  show  the  disease  which  preyed  on  the  vitals 
of  Louisiana,  and  which  was  keeping  her  in  such  a  pro- 
tracted state  of  consumptive  languor.  Beauchamp's 


4:52  THE  INDIA  COMPANY 

comments  on  Perier's  harshness  were  certainly  deserved^ 
so  far  at  least  as  the  dealings  of  this  officer  with  the 
Indians  are  taken  into  consideration.  His  consigning 
them  to  the  stake  and  fagot,  or  his  selling  them  into 
bondage,  were  measures  of  no  soothing  character,  and  it 
is  not  astonishing  that  Beauchamp  should  have  drawn 
the  conclusion,  that  the  return  of  the  mild  and  humane 
Bienville,  as  governor,  would  be  looked  upon  by  the  In- 
dians as  a  boon  of  conciliation. 

Such  being  the  course  of  events  in  Louisiana,  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  great  India  Company, 
the  creation  of  which  had  produced  such  a  ferment  on 
account  of  the  prodigies  it  was  expected  to  work  in  the 
production  of  wealth,  drooping  under  the  infliction  of 
so  many  disappointments  and  the  load  of  so  many  obli- 
gations, should  have  been  anxious  to  waive  the  mo- 
nopoly of  trade,  and  all  the  other  privileges  it  had 
obtained  to  colonize  Louisiana.  After  receiving  the 
melancholy  intelligence  of  the  Natchez  massacre,  the 
directors  of  the  company  and  the  stockholders,  almost 
unanimously,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  could  no 
longer  support  the  expenses  which  were  necessary  to 
keep  up  the  colony,  and  on  the  23d  of  January,  1731, 
they  proposed  to  the  king  to  return  into  his  hands  the 
charter  which  they  at  last  found  to  be  too  onerous. 
They  alledged  in  their  petition  that,  in  profitless  at- 
tempts to  carry  this  charter  into  execution,  they  had 
already  spent  twenty  millions  of  livres,  and  that  they 
would  completely  break  down  under  the  obligations 
they  had  assumed,  if  the  government  did  not  come  to 
their  relief.  This  proposition  gave  rise  to  a  series  of  ne- 
gotiations, and  to  various  transactions  between  the  gov- 
ernment and  the  company,  which  are  not  of  sufficient 
interest  to  be  related.  But  the  proposed  retrocession 
became  at  last  final,  and  the  government  must  be  con 


SURRENDERS  ITS  CHARTER.  453 

sidered  as  having  entirely  resumed  the  administration 
of  the  colony,  on  the  15th  of  November,  when  it  issued 
several  ordinances  relative  to  the  winding  up  of  the 
affairs  of  the  company.  Two  delegates,  Brusle  and 
Bru,  were  appointed  by  the  king  to  proceed  to  Louisi- 
ana, to  liquidate  and  settle  the  accounts  of  the  com- 
pany with  the  government  and  with  individuals ;  and 
the  creditors  of  the  company  in  the  colony  were  ordered 
to  present  their  claims  tJiere  to  the  delegates,  for  exami- 
nation, approbation,  and  payment,  those  creditors  being 
prohibited  from  suing  the  company  in  Europe  for  any 
debt  contracted  in  Louisiana. 

The  company  had,  in  payment  of  its  debts,  emitted 
a  considerable  quantity  of  bonds,  called  "billets  de 
caisse"  which  had  gradually  become  part  of  the  cur- 
rency of  the  country,  and  which  were  in  daily  use. 
But  on  the  15th  of  November,  Governor  Perier  and 
the  commissary  of  marine,  Salmon,  issued  an  ordinance 
which  declared  that,  considering  that  such  a  currency 
as  the  company's  bonds  or  billets  de  caisse  interfered 
with  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  king's  coin,  and  that  at 
the  same  time  it  being  the  wish  of  his  majesty  that 
the  holders  of  these  bonds  should  have  the  faculty  to 
pay  with  them  the  debts  contracted  while  they  were 
the  currency  of  the  country,  it  was  decreed  that  they 
might  still  be  used  during  fifteen  days  from  the  date  of 
the  ordinance,  after  which  time  they  should  be  null 
and  void,  and  withdrawn  from  circulation.  A  fine  of 
twenty  livres  was  to  be  inflicted,  for  the  first  offense, 
on  any  person  convicted  of  having  dealt  in  these  bonds 
as  currency,  after  the  time  specified,  and  corporal  pun- 
ishment was  to  be  the  penalty  for  a  second  violation  of 
the  ordinance  by  the  same  person.  The  effect  of  this 
measure  was  to  depreciate  these  bonds,  and  their  sud- 
den withdrawal  from  the  money-market  produced  in 


454     REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  FALL  OF  THE  COMPANY. 

the  currency  a  vacuum  which  was  sensibly  felt.  Hence 
a  financial  crisis  which  greatly  added  to  the  already 
existing  distress  of  the  colonists. 

Thus  did  the  India  Company  close  her  career  after  a 
laborious  existence  of  fourteen  years.  She  had  failed 
(  as  signally  as  her  predecessor,  Crozat,  although,  having 
I  superior  means,  she  had  accomplished  more  for  the  col- 
v  ony.  She  had  founded  New  Orleans,  which  she  had  so 
named  in  compliment  to  her  great  patron,  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  Regent  of  France,  and  she  had  made  important 
settlements  at  Natchez,  at  the  Tchoupitoulas,  Cannes 
Brulees,  Baton  Rouge,  Manchac,  and  Pointe  Coupee. 
She  had  taken  Louisiana  with  a  white  population  of 
about  five  hundred  souls  and  twenty  negroes,  and  she 
left  it  with  a  population  of  five  thousand  whites  and 
about  two  thousand  five  hundred  negroes.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that,  for  the  last  ten  years  since 
1721,  the  white  population  had  remained  stationary; 
the  negroes  alone  had  increased,  their  number  having 
swollen  from  about  six  hundred  to  over  two  thousand. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  financial  schemes  of  John  Law  had 
given  to  the  colonization  of  Louisiana  by  a  company, 
an  impetus  which  was  destined  to  cease  by  the  collapse 
of  the  bubbles  from  which  the  attempt  had  originated. 
Unfortunately,  the  colonization  of  Louisiana  had  not 
been  a  great  national  enterprise,  undertaken  by  patriot- 
ism and  carried  on  by  enlightened  statesmanship.  It 
was  a  stock-jobbing  operation,  a  mere  money-making 
speculation  a  bait  thrown  out  to  greedy  stockholders, 
and,  like  most  speculations  of  this  kind,  it  ended  in 
ruin.  It  had  only  the  honor  of  being  a  splendid  de- 
ception ;  it  blazed  out  like  a  meteor,  but  to  be  soon 
swallowed  up  by  obscurity. 

The  king  having  agreed  to  take  on  his  own  account 
all  the  property  of  the  company  in  Louisiana,  an  inven- 


THE  SUPERIOR  COUNCIL  REORGANIZED.  455 

tory  of  what  it  possessed  was  made  under  the  direction 
of  Salmon,  the  king's  commissary,  and  the  estimate  of 
what  it  was  found  to  be  worth  was  fixed  at  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty-three  thousand  livres.  This  property 
consisted  of  some  merchandise,  and  of  a  brick  kiln  in 
front  of  the  city,  with  two  hundred  and  sixty  slaves, 
fourteen  horses,  and  eight  thousand  barrels  of  rice.  The 
negroes  were  valued,  on  an  average,  at  seven  hundred 
livres  a  piece,  the  horses  at  fifty-seven  livres,  and  the 
rice  at  three  livres  per  hundred  pounds. 

The  Superior  Council  of  Louisiana  was  reorganized 
by  letters  patent  of  the  7th  of  May,  1*732,  and  was  com- 
posed in  the  following  manner : — Governor  Perier,  Sal- 
mon, the  king's  commissary,  Loubois  and  D'Artaguette, 
lieutenants  de  roi,  or  the  king's  lieutenant-governors, 
Major  Benac,  commander  of  New  Orleans,  Fa'zende, 
Brusl^,  Bru,  Lafreniere,  Prat,  Raguet,  and  Fleuriau, 
who  had  been  reappointed  attorney-general.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  he  had  lost  his  office,  in  1726,  for 
having  resisted  the  authority  of  De  la  Chaise,  the  king's 
commissary.  Rossart  was  appointed  secretary  of  the 
council. 

In  order  to  revive  commerce,  which  had  been  com- 
pletely destroyed  by  the  monopoly  conceded  to  the  In- 
dia Company,  the  king  granted  several  privileges  and 
advantages  to  such  of  his  subjects  as  would  send  vessels 
to  Louisiana.  Thus,  by  an  ordinance  of  the  13th  of 
September,  he  exempted  from  duty  the  merchandise 
exported  from  France  to  Louisiana,  and  the  produce  of 
Louisiana  imported  into  France. 

This  was,  at  last,  taking  one  step  in  the  right  path, 
and  doing  what  ought  to  have 'been  done  long  before, 
instead  of  allowing  to  one  man,  or  one  company,  in  vio- 
lation of  all  the  rules  of  common  sense  and  justice,  a 
monopoly  which  did  not  even  benefit  the  grantees. 


4:56  RETURN  OF  BIENVILLE  AS  GOVERNOR. 

But  as  soon  as  it  was  known  that  the  trade  with  Louis- 
iana was  open  to  competition,  the  merchants  of  St. 
Malo,  of  Bordeaux,  of  Marseilles,  and  of  the  Cap  Fran- 
9ais  began  to  make  preparations  to  try  this  new  market. 

The  government  fixed  the  number  of  regulars  to  be 
maintained  in  the  colony  at  eight  hundred  men,  and, 
by  several  ordinances,  attempted  to  prevent  the  many 
fluctuations  to  which  the  metallic  currency  of  the  colony 
was  subject. 

Bienville  was  reappointed  governor  of  Louisiana  in 
the  place  of  Perier,  who  was  subsequently  raised  to  the 
rank  of  lieutenant-general  as  a  reward  for  his  services, 
and  his  brother  Salverte  shared  the  same  promotion. 
Perier  had  been  over  six  years  governor  of  the  colony, 
and  retired  with  the  reputation  of  a  man  of  integrity 
and  talent,  but  of  stern  disposition,  and  of  manners 
somewhat  bordering  on  roughness.  There  was  at  the 
bottom  of  his  character  a  fund  of  harshness  from  which 
the  Indians  had  but  too  much  to  suffer,  and  which 
made  itself  felt  even  by  his  French  subordinates. 

Bienville,  much  to  his  own  satisfaction  and  to  the 
gratification  of  the  colonists,  returned  to  Louisiana  in 
1733,  after  an  absence  of  eight  years.  The  surrender 
of  the  company's  charter,  the  resumption  of  the  admin- 
istration of  the  colony  by  the  king,  and  the  return  of 
Bienville,  were  circumstances  which  gladdened  their 
hearts,  and  inspired  them  with  high  hopes  of  approach- 
ing and  permanent  prosperity. 

On  the  18th  of  March,  an  ordinance  of  the  king  fixed 
the  price  at  which  the  farmers-general  in  France  were 
bound  to  receive  the  tobacco  from  Louisiana.  The 
rates  were: — 35  livres  per  hundred  pounds  for  1733; 
30  livres  for  1734  and  1735 ;  27  livres  for  1736  and 
1737;  and  25  livres  for  1738.  Thus  the  government 
reserved  to  itself  the  right  of  being  the  sole  purchaser 


SITUATION  OF  THE  COLONY.  457 

of  the  tobacco  raised  in  Louisiana,  and  to  pay  no  more 
than  what  it  thought  proper  to  give,  whatever  might 
be  the  cost  of  producing  the  article,  and  its  intrinsic 
value  in  the  market.  Such  was  one  of  the  thousand 
absurdities  and  flagrant  injustices  of  the  suicidal  system 
applied  by  France  to  her  colonies !  The  blasting  in- 
fluence which  it  had  on  Louisiana  can  be  easily  con- 
ceived ;  and  it  is  not  astonishing  that  Diron  d'Arta- 
guette,  who  had  gone  to  France  and  had  returned  in 
company  with  Bienville,  should  have  found  the  colony 
in  the  situation  which  he  thus  describes,  in  a  dispatch 
of  the  23d  of  April  from  Mobile.  "I  have  found  on 
my  arrival  at  this  place,"  says  he,  "  two  contagious  dis- 
eases :  first,  the  small-pox,  which  has  carried  off  and  is 
still  killing,  every  day,  a  considerable  number  of  per- 
sons of  both  sexes  and  of  every  age ;  and  next,  a  gene- 
ral dearth  of  provisions,  from  which  every  body  is  suf- 
fering, and  which  has  been  the  result  of  the  destruction 
of  the  late  crop  by  a  hurricane.  Our  planters  and  me- 
chanics here  are  dying  of  hunger,  and  those  at  New 
Orleans  are  in  no  better  situation.  Some  are  clamorous 
for  returning  to  France ;  others  secretly  run  away  to 
the  Spaniards  at  Pensacola.  The  colony  is  on  the  eve 
of  being  depopulated."  Such  was  the  situation  of  the 
colony  thirty-four  years  after  its  foundation,  in  a  coun- 
try blessed  with  such  fertility  as  Louisiana !  From  the 
very  first  days  of  its  existence  it  had  continued  to  strug- 
gle against  the  chilling  grasp  of  famine,  and  complaints 
of  starvation  had  been  wafted  across  the  ocean  by  every 
wind  which  blew  in  the  direction  of  the  mother  coun- 
try. Such  a  state  of  things  denotes  a  profound,  a  radi- 
cal vice  in  the  organization  and  administration  of  the 
colony.  Active,  indeed,  must  have  been  the  worm  con- 
cealed in  the  roots  of  the  tree  which  had  been  trans 
ported  into  such  a  luxuriant  soil,  and  which,  instead  of 


458  BIENVILLE  AND  SALMON'S  DISPATCH. 

growing' to  its  natural  size  and  to  maturity,  instead  cf 
embellishing  and  enriching  the  country  with  its  flowers 
and  fruits,  could  hardly  feed  its  puny  trunk  with  suffi- 
cient sap  to  continue  to  live  in  sickly  vegetation.  It 
requires,  however,  no  very  sagacious  eye  to  discover 
that  what  it  wanted  was  the  atmosphere,  of  Liberty, 
which  was  pumped  away  by  the  pneumatic  engine  of  a 
despotic  and  imbecile  government. 

On  the  12th  of  May,  Bienville  and  Salmon,  the  king's 
commissary,  sent  to  France  a  joint  dispatch  in  which  they 
informed  the  government,  that  the  colonists  were  very 
dilatory  in  producing  their  titles  of  concession  in  order 
to  have  them  confirmed,  as  required  by  the  ordinance 
issued  on  the  30th  of  December,  1723,  and  they  recom- 
mended that  new  titles  be  granted  in  the  name  of  the 
king,  not  only  to  those  who  claimed  under  concessions 
from  the  company,  but  also  to  those  whose  claims  rested 
on  nothing  else  but  possession.  "  The  country  is  good," 
they  wrote,  "but,  like  all  new  countries,  is  liable  to 
sudden  atmospherical  changes,  and  to  some  confusion 
of  seasons.  Besides,  the  colonists  lack  experience,  and 
are  not  sufficiently  well  settled  on  their  plantations, 
which  are  not  as  yet  properly  organized.  They  are  in 
want  of  negroes,  and  they  complain  of  their  being 
obliged  to  pay  for  the  goods  they  need,  two  hundred 
per  cent,  above  what  those  articles  cost  the  traders. 
They  also  complain  of  the  number  of  useless  vagabonds 
who  have  been  sent  here  by  the  company."  Speaking 
of  the  Ursuline  nuns,  they  said : — "  They  are  very  in- 
dustrious and  disinterested;  they  are  much  occupied, 
and  live  on  little."  So  minute  were  the  details  which 
they  went  into,  that  they  informed  the  government 
that  the  first  child  born  in  the  colony,  and  consequently 
"the first  Creole"  was  named  Claude  Jousset,  and  was 


BIENVILLE'S  VIEWS  ON  INDIAN  AFFAIRS.  459 

the  son  of  a  Canadian  who  carried  on  a  small  trading 
business  at  Mobile. 

From  a  long  dispatch  which  Bienville  wrote  on  the 
15th  of  May,  on  the  situation  and  disposition  in  which 
he  found  the  Indians,  it  seems  that  all  the  tribes  in 
Louisiana  were  very  much  disaffected,  not  excepting  even 
those  over  whom  St.  Denis  exercised  so  much  influence. 
"  The  commander  of  the  fort  at  Natchitoches,"  said  he, 
informs  me  that  the  Indians  have  shown  an  inclina- 
tion to  rebel,  and  have  compelled  him  to  keep  himself 
shut  up  during  six  months,  and  that,  although  they 
show  themselves  more  peaceably  disposed,  yet  he  still 
keeps  on  his  guard.  In  a  word  it  seems  that  the 
colony  is  threatened  on  every  side,  and  it  is,  in  fact, 
1  the  custom  of  the  Indian  tribes  to  become  hostile  in 
imitation  of  one  another.  I  hope,  however,  to  restore 
in  Louisiana  that  tranquillity  which  she  enjoyed  when  I 
left  her  in  1*725.  Since  my  arrival,  the  Natchez  have 
attempted  nothing  against  the  French  nor  against  their 
allies ;  but  they  are  not  destroyed,  although  we  are  ig- 
norant of  their  numbers.  The  Tunicas  have  assured 
me  that  these  indefatigable  enemies  of  the  French  are 
divided  into  three  bands :  one,  the  least  numerous,  has 
retired  into  an  impracticable  country,  a  little  above 
their  ancient  villages ;  the  second,  which  is  more  con- 
siderable, dwells  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  near 
the  Ouatchitas,  and  opposite  the  Yazoo  River;  the 
third,  which  is  the  most  numerous,  has  been  received 
among  the  Chickasaws,  who  have  granted  to  these  refu- 
gees lands  on  which  to  build  a  village.  I  shall  take 
care  that  they  be  constantly  attacked  and  harassed  by 
our  Indian  allies." 

With  regard  to  the  Chickasaws,  he  wrote :  "  If  we 
can  not  gain  over  this  nation,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
drive  it  away  from  the  territory  of  the  colony."  True 


460  BIENVILLE'S  VIEWS  ON  INDIAN  AFFAIRS. 

to  this  policy,  lie  induced  the  Choctaws  to  set  up  an 
expedition  against  the  Chickasaws,  and  after  informing 
his  government  of  this  fact  in  a  communication  dated 
the  26th  of  July,  he  added:  "It  would  have  been 
proper  to  join  a  body  of  French  troops  to  the  Indians, 
in  order  to  attack  the  forts  of  the  Chickasaws,  and  to 
achieve  some  glorious  feat,  which  is  an  indispensable 
thing  to  restore  in  the  colony  that  healthy  tone  and 
self-reliance  which  it  has  lost.  But  we  are  too  poor 
and  without  forces,  and  we  must  not  expose  ourselves 
to  fail  a  second  time  in  any  enterprise  of  the  kind.  The 
colony  is  in  such  a  state  of  indigence,  that,  last  year,  the 
people  were  obliged  during  more  than  three  months  to 
live  on  the  seeds  and  grains  of  reeds.  Much  to  my  re- 
gret, therefore,  I  am  condemned  to  inaction."  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  conceive  how  the  country  could  have 
been  reduced  to  such  a  pitch  of  misery,  and  such  rep- 
resentations can  not  but  be  suspected  of  gross  exaggera- 
tion. The  seeds  and  grains  of  reeds,  of  which  Bien- 
ville  speaks,  must  have  been  figurative  expressions. 

On  the  10th  of  August,  Bienville  informed  the  French 
government,  that  the  Natchez  who  were  on  the  banks 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  who  composed  the  two  bands  of 
which  it  has  been  spoken,  were  so  effectually  harassed 
by  incessant  attacks  from  the  Indians  he  had  set  upon 
them,  that  they  were  all  retreating  toward  the  Chick- 
asaws, to  join  the  third  baud  which  had  there  found 
shelter  and  protection. 

The  whole  year  1*734  was  spent  in  fruitless  negotia- 
tions, to  induce  the  Choctaws  to  make  a  serious  attack 
upon  the  Chickasaws,  and  the  dispatches  of  the  time 
frequently  mention  a  Choctaw  chief,  called  the  Red 
Shoe,  who  acted  a  conspicuous  part  in  all  these  trans- 
actions, and  who,  it  seems,  was  constantly  oscillating 
between  the  French  and  the  English,  playing  off  one 


FRUITLESS  EXPEDITION  AGAINST  THE  CHICKASAWS.     461 

interest  against  the  other,  selling  himself  to  the  highest 
bidder,  and  shuffling  his  cards  to  his  best  advantage,  in 
a  manner  which  would  have  elicited  the  approbation 
of  Machiavel  himself. 

Diron  d'Artaguette,  who  commanded  at  Mobile, 
asked  leave  of  Bienville  to  muster  one  hundred  French- 
men, and  with  them  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
Choctaws,  to  march  against  the  Chickasaws;  he  was 
greatly  irritated  at  Bienville's  refusal  on  the  ground 
of  the  want  of  arms  and  provisions,  and  because  such 
forces  were  too  weak  to  insure  success,  considering  also 
that  the  disposition  of  the  Choctaws  was  doubtful,  and 
therefore  that  they  might  prove  traitors.  It  was  vainly 
represented  to  D'Artarguette,  that  with  such  a  defi- 
ciency of  means  he  would  endanger  his  reputation  and 
that  of  the  French  arms.  He  remained  convinced  that 
a  feeling  of  jealousy  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  non-com- 
pliance with  his  demand.  This  conviction  was  in- 
creased when  he  saw  Lesueur,  at  the  head  of  thirty 
Frenchmen  and  one  thousand  Choctaws,  depart  to  wage 
war  upon  the  Chickasaws.  But  Bienville  answered  his 
complaints  by  observing,  that  if  this  expedition  was 
defeated,  it  would  bring  no  discredit  or  shame  on  the 
French,  as  there  were  so  very  few  of  them  engaged 
in  it.  The  Choctaws  had  obtained  considerable  pres- 
ents from  the  French  to  march,  and  when  they  arrived 
in  front  of  the  forts  of  the  Chickasaws,  being  bribed  off 
by  those  they  came  to  attack,  they  marched  back  with- 
out striking  a  blow,  with  the  exception  of  Red  Shoe, 
who  showed  some  conscience,  and  who,  having  been 
paid  by  the  French  to  fight,  resolved  to  gain  his  money. 
At  the  head  of  a  small  band  of  trusty  followers,  he 
stealthily  approached  one  of  the  villages,  and  poured  a 
volley  of  bullets  into  the  cabins.  But  he  was  imme- 
diately attacked  by  forces  immensely  superior  to  his 


462  MISUNDERSTANDINGS  BETWEEN 

own,  and  closely  pursued  by  about  two  hundred  men, 
the  distance  of  twenty  miles.  He  escaped,  however, 
after  having  lost  four  men,  among  whom  was  the 
brother  of  the  great  chief  of  the  Choctaws. 

On  hearing  of  the  unsuccessful  termination  of  this 
expedition,  Bienville  convened  a  meeting  of  the  Choc- 
taws  at  Mobile,  and  upbraided  them  for  their  want  of 
faith.  They  all  apologized  in  humble  terms  for  their 
conduct,  with  the  exception  of  Red  Shoe,  who  spoke 
with  arrogance,  and  exalted  too  much  what  he  had 
done.  Bienville  affected  to  be  highly  displeased  at  his 
presumption,  and  reprimanded  him  roughly.  How- 
ever, he  made  to  the  chiefs  some  presents,  which  were 
necessarily  small  on  account  of  the  penury  in  which  he 
was,  and  he  renewed  with  them  the  old  treaties  of  alli- 
ance. The  conditions  on  which  merchandise  was  to  be 
furnished  to  the  Choctaws  were  agreed  upon,  and  they, 
in  their  turn,  solemnly  promised  to  hold  no  communi- 
cation with  the  English.  It  was  exceedingly  impor- 
tant for  the  French  to  secure  the  support  of  this  power- 
ful tribe,  which  Bienville  represents  as  owning  fifty- 
two  large  villages  scattered  over  a  circumference  of 
three  hundred  miles.  Hence  Bienville  bitterly  and  in- 
cessantly complained  of  not  being  supplied  with  suffi- 
cient means  to  command,  by  the  required  presents,  the 
allegiance  of  these  Indians. 

Unfortunately  for  the  colony,  the  misunderstanding 
which  had  broken  out  between  Bienville  and  D'Ar- 
taguette  became  every  day  more  marked  and  serious 
in  its  character.  They  were  both,  however,  men  of  dis- 
tinguished merit,  and  ought  to  have  understood  and 
appreciated  each  other.  But  it  seemed,  as  for  the  past, 
that  harmony  could  never  exist  long  between  the  chiefg 
of  the  colony.  Thus  D'Artaguette,  in  one  of  his  dis- 
patches, of  the  29th  of  April,  1*735,  assures  his  govern- 


BIENVILLE  AND  D'ARTAGUETTE.  463 

merit,  that  if  Bienville  is  displeased  with  and  complains 
of  him,  it  is  because  he,  D'Artaguette,  has  made  known 
the  misconduct  of  Bienville's  proteges,  or  favorites, 
Lesueur  and  the  Jesuit,  Father  Beaudoin,  ivJio,  to  fh$ 
great  scandal  of  the  CJioctaws,  seduce  ttieir  women. 

Be  it  for  this  cause,  or  for  another,  it  is  certain  that, 
notwithstanding  the  treaty  of  alliance  which  had  been 
recently  renewed,  and  the  presents  they  had  received, 
the  Choctaws  were  divided  into  two  factions,  one  of 
which  was  hostile  to  the  French,  and  the  other  in  favor 
of  the  English,  who,  for  many  years,  had  been  strug- 
gling to  gain  over  that  nation  to  their  interest,  and  to 
trade  with  it  exclusively  of  the  French. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  Chickasaws  and  the  Natchez, 
united  in  one  body,  were  not  inactive,  and  never  failed 
to  attack  the  French  whenever  the  opportunity  was 
favorable.  The  imagination  may  well  be  permitted  to 
conceive,  that  the  long  series  of  misfortunes  heaped 
upon  the  Natchez  had  produced  some  Hannibal  of  the 
wilderness,  who  sought  everywhere  for  avengers  of  his 
nation's  wrongs,  and  who  thought  that 

"  What  though  the  field  be  lost, 
All  is  not  lost : — the  unconquerable  will 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield, 
And  what  is  else  not  to  be  overcome."  MILTON. 

De  Coulanges  had  been  ordered  up  the  river  to  carry 
ammunition  to  young  D'Artaguette,  who  had  so  dis- 
tinguished himself  when  the  Natchez  were  besieged  by 
Loubois,  and  who  had  since  been  intrusted  with  the 
command  of  the  Illinois  district.  He  had  the  im- 
prudence not  to  obey  strictly  his  orders,  and  to  trans- 
port merchandise  belonging  to  some  officers,  instead  of 
a  considerable  quantity  of  powder,  which  he  left  behind 
to  make  room  for  the  other  article.  Disappointed  at 


464  THE  CHICKASAWS  SUE  FOR  PEACE. 

not  receiving  the  ammunition  of  which  he  stood  much 
in  need,  D'Artaguette  dispatched  in  quest  of  it  an 
officer,  named  Du  Coder,  with  ten  men.  Before  reach- 
ing the  Arkansas  district,  they  were  attacked  by  two 
hundred  and  forty  Chickasaw  and  Natchez  warriors, 
who  killed  eight  of  the  soldiers,  and  made  prisoners 
Du  Coder,  a  sergeant,  and  a  soldier.  Speaking  of  this 
untoward  event,  Bienville  said :  "  I  have  ordered  D'Ar- 
taguette to  imprison  De  Coulanges  for  six  months  in 
Fort  Chartres,  and  I  would  have  interdicted  this  offi- 
cer, if  I  had  not  taken  into  consideration  his  past  ser- 
vices, particularly  in  the  last  Natchez  war.  I  hope  that 
this  example  will  be  sufficient  to  moderate  the  avidity 
for  gain,  which  some  of  our  officers  have  imbibed  in  the 
service  of  the  company." 

It  seems,  however,  that  the  Chickasaws  had  become 
anxious  for  peace,  and  they  invited  Du  Coder,  their 
prisoner,  to  write  to  that  effect  to  Bienville :  they  also 
set  free  the  soldier  they  had  captured.  He  soon  reach- 
ed New  Orleans,  and  informed  Bienville  that  the 
Chickasaws  had  treated  kindly  their  white  prisoners, 
who  had  been  conducted  through  the  Indian  villages 
with  a  white  stick  in  their  hands,  and  thoroughly 
washed  in  public  from  head  to  foot,  as  a  token  of  life 
being  granted  to  them.  Through  this  soldier  they 
again  sued  for  peace,  and  begged  to  be  protected 
against  the  marauding  attacks  of  the  Indian  allies  of 
the  French.  Bienville  wrote  back  to  Du  Coder  to  try 
to  escape*  with  the  sergeant  his  companion,  because  he 
could  not  grant  peace  to  the  Chickasaws,  and  could  not 
sacrifice  tlie  glory  and  interests  of  the  French  nation  to 
the  safety  of  two  men.  Thus  it  is  evident  that  he  had 
taken  the  resolution,  to  come  to  no  terms  with  the 
Chickasaws,  and  to  drive  them  away  from  the  colony. 

*  Du  Coder  took  the  advice,  and  escaped  shortly  after  with  his  companion. 


MILITARY  PREPARATIONS  OF  THE  INDIANS.  465 

But  though  he  had  determined  on  a  war  of  extermina- 
tion, he  was  obliged  to  postpone  all  operations,  and  he 
wrote  to  the  French  minister  of  Marine  :  "  I  beg  your 
excellency  not  to  forget  that  I  can  hardly  set  on  foot 
two  hundred  men,  and  that  I  can  not  rely  on  the 
Indians,  who  have  given  us  so  many  proofs  of  their 
cowardice  in  the  expeditions  I  have  induced  them  to 
undertake  against  the  Chickasaws.  I  dare  not  then, 
with  such  means  as  I  have,  expose  the  honor  of  our 
arms  against  a  warlike  nation,  numbering,  at  least,  four 
hundred  and  fifty  warriors.  I  have  learned  from  the 
soldier  they  sent  me  back,  that  they  have  five  pali- 
saded forts,  and  besides,  for  every  ten  cabins  in  their 
villages,  one  that  is  fortified  with  three  lines  or  rows  of 
stakes  provided  with  loopholes,  and  terraced  in  such  a 
way  as  to  be  fire-proof.  All  these  cabins  are  so  situ- 
ated as  to  protect  one  another.  The  Natchez,  who 
still  number  one  hundred  and  eighty  warriors,  have  a 
village  of  their  own  contiguous  to  those  of  the  Choc- 
taws.  Besides  the  fortified  cabins  and  the  five  forts  I 
have  mentioned,  the  Chickasaws  have  a  larger  one  with 
four  bastions,  which  they  have  constructed  with  the 
trunks  of  trees  stuck  into  the  ground,  in  imitation  of 
the  one  we  had  among  the  Natchez  when  they  revolt- 
ed. Such  are  the  offensive  and  defensive  means  of  our 
enemies.  Hence  you  can  judge  what  we  can  do.  Were 
I  to  march  against  them  with  the  whole  colony  at  my 
heels,  I  could  not  hope  for  success.  I  can  not  therefore 
undertake  any  thing  lightly.  I  request,  again  and  for- 
ever, an  augmentation  of  four  companies.  I  will  do 
however  all  I  can,  to  continue  to  harass  the  Chick- 
asaws with  incursions  from  our  red  allies.  But  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  that  some  bold  and  remarkable 
blow  be  struck,  to  impress  the  Indians  with  a  proper 
sense  of  respect  and  duty  toward  us." 
EE 


406  ENGAGEMENT  WITH  A  SMUGGLING  VESSEL. 

At  that  time,  it  was  reported  that  the  British  faction 
among  the  Choctaws  had  gained  so  much  ground  as  to 
prevail  upon  that  nation  to  make  war  upon  the  French, 
and  to  attack  Mobile.  This  gave  rise  to  great  alarm  in 
that  settlement,  where  the  inhabitants,  under  the  ap- 
prehension of  immediate  danger,  never  went  out  of  their 
houses  without  being  well  provided  with  arms,  and  ev&n 
did  not  go  to  church  to  hear  mass  without  liaving  their 
guns  on  their  shoidders,  as  stated  in  one  of  Bienville's 
dispatches.  So  intense  became  their  fears,  that  they 
prepared  to  abandon  the  place,  and  to  retire  to  New 
Orleans.  But  Bienville  sent  them  positive  orders  not 
to  leave  their  habitations,  and  assured  them  that  they 
had  nothing  to  fear.  In  one  of  his  dispatches  he  ac- 
cused Diron  d'Artaguette  of  being  the  cause  of  the 
discontent  which  had  spread  among  the  Choctaws,  by 
the  harsh  manner  in  which  he  had  treated  some  war- 
riors of  that  nation  who  had  come  to  Mobile,  to  have 
their  arms  repaired  and  put  in  order. 

A  short  time  after,  on  the  16th  of  July,  a  smuggling 
vessel  from  Jamaica  appeared  in  Mobile  Bay,  and  an- 
chored at  twelve  miles  from  the  fort.  D'Artaguette 
ordered  her  to  leave  the  bay,  and  on  her  captain  delay- 
ing to  obey,  sent  Lieutenant  De  Velles  in  an  armed  boat 
with  thirty  men,  to  take  possession  of  the  vessel,  which 
had  a  very  inoffensive  look,  but  which,  nevertheless, 
opened  such  an  effective  fire  on  the  boat  as  she  ap- 
proached, that  De  Velles,  having  seventeen  of  his  men 
killed  or  wounded  in  an  instant,  was  obliged  to  re- 
treat, and  to  allow  his  enemy  to  gain  the  open  sea  with- 
out further  molestation.  This  circumstance  again  gave 
to  Bienville  an  opportunity  to  tax  D'Artaguette  with 
gross  imprudence  and  carelessness.  In  fact,  a  fierce  war 
of  angry  accusations  and  recriminations  was  now  kept  up 
between  these  two  antagonists,  and  had  succeeded  the 


DIFFICULTY  IN  SETTLING  THE  COMPANY'S  AFFAIRS.      467 

intimacy  which  had  existed  between  them  during  many 
years. 

The  settlement  of  the  company's  affairs  in  the  colony 
proved  to  be  of  no  small  difficulty.  The  stockholders 
complained  that  the  just  debts  due  to  the  company 
could  not  be  recovered,  because  the  debtors  were  fa- 
vored by  the  only  judicial  tribunal  in  the  country,  the 
members  of  the  council,  who  themselves  were  indebted 
to  the  company.  Considering  this  state  of  things,  the 
king,  by  an  ordinance  of  the  16th  of  October,  1733,  ap- 
pointed the  royal  commissary,  Salmon,  the  sole  judge 
to  pronounce  in  the  last  resort  between  the  company 
and  its  debtors  or  creditors  in  Louisiana. 

Since  1723,  when  the  company  had  introduced  into 
the  colony  a  paper  currency,  during  the  existence  of 
which  the  dollar  had  risen  in  value  to  35  livres,  a  bot- 
tle of  brandy  to  30  livres,  a  pair  of  shoes  to  35  livres 
of  that  paper  money,  and  so  on  in  proportion  for  every 
other  merchandise,  a  vast  amount  of  debts  had  been 
contracted  under  that  monetary  system  between  the 
colonists,  and  between  the  company  and  individuals. 
Now  that  the  government  had  withdrawn  from  circu- 
lation all  the  paper  money  of  the  company,  by  receiving 
it  in  payment  of  goods,  debtors  contended  that  their 
debts  ought  to  be  reduced  to  one  half,  considering  that 
they  were  under  the  necessity  of  making  their  pay- 
ments in  a  currency  much  more  valuable  than  the  one 
in  existence  when  they  had  contracted  their  obligations. 
Individuals  generally  submitted  to  transactions  of  this 
kind,  but  the  company,  which  was  much  more  of  a 
creditor  than  of  a  debtor,  refused  to  admit  the  justice 
and  application  of  this  rule.  Salmon  was  in  favor  of 
the  proposed  reduction,  but  hesitated  to  enforce  it,  and 
was  satisfied  with  making  recommendations  to  com- 
promise. Thus  matters  stood  for  some  time. 


468   THE  GOVERNMENT  PROPOSES  A  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

The  French  government  thought  it  a  heavy  "burden 
to  provide  for  the  expenses  of  the  colony  in  hard  coin, 
and,  in  1734,  consulted  Bienville  and  Salmon  on  the 
emission  of  paper  money  (papier  de  cartes).  They 
were  opposed  to  it  altogether,  but  not  venturing  to 
express  the  opinion  that  it  ought  not  to  be  emitted  at 
all,  they  advised  that  the  measure  be  postponed  for 
two  years.  In  support  of  this  opinion,  they  described 
the  aversion  which  existed  in  the  colony  against  this 
kind  of  currency,  and  the  want  of  confidence  with 
which  it  would  be  received;  they  represented  that 
when  the  company  surrendered  its  charter,  its  paper 
was  depreciated  to  half  its  original  value,  and  that  such 
had  been  the  fate  of  every  paper  currency  in  the  colony 
since  its  foundation ;  that  it  would  drive  away  the  pre- 
cious metals,  make  the  dollar,  as  it  had  been  seen  once, 
rise  up  to  35  livres,  and  open  the  door  again  to  the 
most  disastrous  stock-jobbing  operations,  and  to  the 
foulest  demoralization,  and  that  no  more  would  be  re- 
quired to  cause  the  desertion  and  total  ruin  of  the  coun- 
try. "  We  have  seen,"  said  Bienville  in  one  of  his  dis- 
patches, "  that  one  who  has  paper  money  in  his  pocket, 
will  spend  it  more  easily  than  hard  coin,  and  that,  when 
such  is  the  currency  of  the  country,  every  one  consumes 
all  he  earns  without  any  thought  of  tomorrow?  Bien- 
ville wrote  these  remarkable  lines  in  1734.  True  they 
were  at  that  time,  and  that  truth  was  still  more  ener- 
getically demonstrated  by  what  occurred  in  Louisiana 
a  century  later,  when  it  was  her  curse  to  be  overflooded 
with  a  deluge  of  bank  notes.  It  is  easy,  however,  to 
conceive  the  anxiety  which  the  government  felt,  in 
1734,  to  pay  its  expenses  in  paper,  when  it  is  known 
that  those  expenses  amounted,  during  that  year,  to 
898,245  livres  for  this  puny  colony  of  five  thousand 
souls. 


PLAGUES  OF  INUNDATION,  DROUGHT,  AND  MAD  DOGS.      469 

On  the  15th  of  April,  1735,  Bienville  wrote,  on  the 
state  of  the  colony :  "  One  hundred  thousand  pounds 
of  tobacco  are  made  at  Pointe  Coupee;  two  women 
raise  silk-worms  for  amusement,  and  succeed  very  well ; 
eggs  should  be  sent  by  the  government  to  the  Ursulines, 
who  would  teach  this  industry  to  the  orphans  whose 
education  is  intrusted  to  them.  The  cultivation  of  cot- 
ton is  advantageous,  but  the  planters  experience  great 
difficulty  in  clearing  it  from  the  seeds.  Pitch  and  tar 
are  made  in  some  abundance.  I  neglect  nothing  to 
turn  the  attention  of  the  inhabitants  to  agricultural 
pursuits,  but  in  general  they  are  worthless,  lazy,  disso- 
lute, and  most  of  them  recoil  from  the  labors  necessary 
to  improve  the  lands."  To  those  inhabitants  who  were 
represented  as  lazy  and  dissolute,  the  year  1735  was 
not  a  favorable  one,  for  Bienville  and  Salmon,  in  a 
joint  dispatch  of  the  31st  of  August,  say:  "The  mor- 
tality of  cattle  is  frightful,  the  drought  is  excessive,  and 
the  heat  is  suffocating.  Such  hot  weather  has  never 
been  known  since  the  foundation  of  the  colony,  and  it 
has  now  lasted  four  months  without  any  change.  From 
Christmas  to  the  St.  John  the  waters  were  very  high,  so 
that  many  levees  were  broken.  The  one  which  is  in 
front  of  the  city  gave  way,  and  we  were  very  near 
abandoning  our  houses  and  taking  lodgings  in  boats. 
Then  the  drought  came,  and  the  river  went  down  fif- 
teen feet — a  circumstance  which  had  never  been  seen 
before.  Hence  the  mediocrity  of  our  crops,  our  lands 
having  been  under  water  in  the  planting  season." 

While  the  planters  were  suffering  from  drought,  after 
having  suffered  from  inundation,  the  inhabitants  of  New 
Orleans  were  laboring  under  a  strange  kind  of  infliction. 
They  could  hardly  venture  out  of  their  houses  without 
being  bit  by  mad  dogs.  These  animals  had  increased 
to  such  an  extent,  that  they  had  become  an  intolerable 


4:70  PREPARATIONS  FOR  A  NEW  EXPEDITION 

nuisance,  and  to  remedy  the  evil,  the  royal  commissary, 
Salmon,  ordered  them  to  be  hunted  down  on  certain 
days,  from  five  o'clock  until  six  in  the  morning.  He 
also  prohibited  negroes  and  Indians  from  having  dogs, 
under  the  penalty  for  the  offender  of  being  sentenced 
to  wear  an  iron  collar. 

The  colony  had  always  undergone  great  inconveni- 
ence from  the  want  of  carpenters,  cabinet-makers,  tail- 
ors, shoemakers,  and  mechanics  of  every  description. 
To  obviate  this  difficulty,  an  ordinance  was  issued  free- 
ing from  his  military  engagement  any  French  or  Swiss 
soldier,  if  he  was  a  handicraftsman,  provided  he  agreed 
to  remain  in  the  colony,  and  to  exercise  his  calling. 

The  troops,  which  so  far  had  not  been  supplied  with 
suitable  quarters,  were,  this  year,  comfortably  lodged 
in  barracks,  which  Bienville  and  Salmon  had  ordered, 
on  the  12th  of  July,  1734,  to  be  constructed  on  both 
sides  of  the  public  square  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans. 

The  latter  part  of  1*735,  and  the  beginning  of  1736, 
were  marked  by  great  military  preparations  in  the  col- 
ony. The  French  government  had  sent  to  Bienville  a 
few  additional  troops,  and  notwithstanding  the  doubts 
he  had  expressed  on  the  final  success  of  an  expedition 
against  the  Chickasaws,  except  it  be  with  such  ample 
means  as  the  government  did  not  seem  disposed  to  grant, 
had  ordered  him  to  undertake  one,  as  soon  as  possible, 
against  that  nation,  and  to  drive  it  away  from  the 
country.  In  obedience  to  these  instructions,  Bienville 
had  sent  word  to  the  younger  D'Artaguette,  the  com- 
mander of  the  Illinois  district,  to  collect  all  the  French 
and  Indian  forces  he  could  muster,  and  to  meet  him  on 
the  31st  of  March,  1736,  at  the  Chickasaw  villages.  In 
the  month  of  January  of  that  year,  Bienville  drew  from 
Natchez,  Natchitoches,  and  the  Balize  all  the  officers 
and  soldiers  he  could  spare  without  weakening  too 


AGAINST  THE  CHICKASAWS.  471 

much  the  garrisons  stationed  at  those  places.  He 
formed  a  company  of  volunteers,  composed  of  traders 
and  transient  persons  then  in  New  Orleans,  and  another 
company  of  unmarried  men  belonging  to  the  city,  and 
which  was  called  the  company  of  bachelors.  A  depot 
of  ammunition,  provisions,  and  all  that  was  necessary 
for  the  intended  campaign  was  established  on  the  Tom- 
bekbee,  at  the  distance  of  two  hundred  and  seventy 
miles  from  Mobile,  where  the  several  detachments  of 
the  army  were  successively  sent  through  the  Lakes,  as 
fast  as  conveyances  could  be  procured.  Several  large 
vessels  containing  provisions  and  utensils  of  every  sort 
were  dispatched  down  the  Mississippi  to  Mobile,  and 
on  the  4th  of  March,  Bienville  departed  from  New 
Orleans,  leaving  behind  him  only  four  companies  of 
regulars  under  Noyan,  which  were  to  follow  him  as 
soon  as  they  could  be  transported.  The  boats  having 
to  struggle  against  adverse  winds,  the  whole  of  the 
French  forces  did  not  reach  Mobile  before  the  22d,  and 
it  was  only  on  the  28th,  that  the  last  of  the  vessels 
carrying  provisions  entered  the  harbor,  when  it  was 
discovered  that  her  cargo  had  been  much  damaged  by 
the  sea.  On  the  1st  of  April,  the  expedition  left  Mo- 
bile, and  it  was  only  on  the  23d  that  the  army  reached 
the  Tombekbee  depot,  after  having  had  to  contend 
against  currents,  freshets,  storms,  and  constant  rains. 

There,  while  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  the  Choctaws, 
Bienville  reviewed  his  troops,  which  were  found  to  con- 
sist of  five  hundred  and  forty-four  white  men,  exclud- 
ing the  officers,  and  of  forty-five  negroes,  commanded 
by  free  blacks,  the  balance  being  composed  of  Indians. 
The  principal  officers  were  De  Lery,  D'Hauterive,  De 
Lusser,  De  Courtillas,  Petit,  Berthel,  De  Bombelles, 
Benac,  Le  Blanc,  De  Membrede,  De  Macarty,  De  St. 
Pierre,  De  Velles,  De  Bouille,  Des  Marets,  De  Contre 


472  ARRIVAL  AT  THE  CHICKASAW  VILLAGES. 

Cceur  de  St.  Protais,  Pontalba,  Vanderek,  Montbrun, 
and  Noyan.  At  the  head  of  the  Swiss  companies  were 
Volant  and  Du  Pare ;  Montmolin  was  their  standard- 
bearer.  The  detachments  of  the  militia  were  com- 
manded by  Lesueur  and  St.  Martin. 

The  Choctaws,  to  the  number  of  six  hundred,  having 
come  at  last,  the  army,  after  innumerable  delays  and 
difficulties,  resumed  its  march,  and  on  the  22d  of  May 
encamped  at  about  twenty-seven  miles  from  the  Chick- 
asaw  villages.  On  the  23d,  at  daybreak,  Bienville  had 
a  certain  number  of  trees  cut  down  to  make  stakes, 
and  ordered  the  construction  of  fortifications  for  the 
protection  of  the  boats.  Leaving  in  those  fortifications 
the  general  store-keeper,  the  captains  of  the  boats,  some 
sick  men,  and  twenty  soldiers  under  the  command  of 
Vanderek,  on  the  24th  in  the  afternoon,  and  after  hav- 
ing ordered  the  troops  to  take  provisions  for  twelve 
days,  he  marched  six  miles  further,  where  he  encamped 
for  the  night,  which  was  very  tempestuous.  On  the 
25th,  within  the  space  of  twelve  miles,  the  army  had  to 
cross  successively  three  deep  ravines  running  through  a 
thick  cane-brake,  and  had  to  wade  through  water  rising 
up  to  the  waist.  The  army  then  emerged  on  a  beauti- 
ful and  open  prairie,  on  the  edge  of  which  they  en- 
camped, at  the  distance  of  six  miles  from  the  villages. 

The  intention  of  Bienville  was  to  turn  round  those 
villages  of  the  Chickasaws,  to  march  upon  the  village 
of  the  Natchez,  which  was  in  the  rear,  and  to  attack 
first  those  whom  he  considered  as  the  instigators  of  the 
Chickasaw  war.  But  the  Choctaws  insisted  with  such 
pertinacity  upon  attacking  the  villages  which  were 
nearer,  and  which,  they  said,  contained  more  provisions 
than  that  of  the  Natchez;  and  they  represented  with 
such  warmth,  that,  in  the  needy  condition  in  which  they 
were,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  they  should  take  pos- 


OPERATIONS  BEFORE  THE  CHICKASAW  VILLAGES.        473 

session  of  these  provisions,  that  Bienville  yielded  to 
their  importunities.  The  prairie  in  which  these  vil- 
lages were  situated  covered  a  space  of  about  six  miles. 
The  villages  were  small,  and  built  in  the  shape  of  a  tri- 
angle, on  a  hillock  sloping  down  to  a  brook  which  was 
almost  dry ;  further  off  was  the  main  body  of  the  Chick- 
asaw  villages,  and  the  smaller  ones  seemed  to  be  a  sort 
of  vanguard.  The  Choctaws  having  informed  Bien- 
ville that  he  would  find  water  nowhere  else,  he  ordered 
the  army  to  file  off  close  to  the  wood  which  enclosed 
the  prairie,  in  order  to  reach  another  hillock  that  was 
in  sight.  There  the  troops  halted  to  rest  and  take 
nourishment.  It  was  past  twelve  o'clock. 

The  Indian  scouts  whom  Bienville  had  sent  in  every 
direction  to  look  for  tidings  of  D'Artaguette,  whom  he 
had  expected  to  operate  his  junction  with  him  on  this 
spot,  had  come  back  and  brought  no  information.  It 
was  evident,  therefore,  that  he  could  no  longer  hope 
for  the  co-operation  on  which  he  had  relied,  and  that 
he  had  to  trust  only  to  his  own  resources.  It  was  im- 
possible to  wait ;  and  immediate  action  was  insisted  upon 
by  the  Choctaws  and  the  French  officers,  who  thought 
that  the  three  small  villages  which  have  been  described, 
and  which  were  the  nearest  to  them,  were  not  suscep- 
tible of  much  resistance.  Bienville  yielded  to  the  soli- 
citations of  his  allies  and  of  his  troops,  and  at  two  in 
the  afternoon,  ordered  his  nephew  Noyan  to  begin  the 
attack,  and  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  column  com- 
posed of  a  company  of  grenadiers,  of  detachments  of 
fifteen  men  taken  from  each  one  of  the  eight  companies 
of  French  regulars,  of  sixty-five  men  of  the  Swiss  troops 
and  forty-five  volunteers. 

The  French  had  approached  within  carbine  shot  of 
the  forts,  and  at  that  distance,  could  plainly  distinguish 
Englishmen,  who  appeared  to  be  very  active  in  assist- 


474:  ATTACK  ON  THE  VILLAGE  OF  ACKIA. 

ing  the  Chickasaws  in  preparing  their  defense,  and 
who  had  hoisted  up  their  flag  on  one  of  the  forts. 
Bienville  recommended  that  they  should  not  be  as- 
sailed if  they  thought  proper  to  retire,  and  to  give 
them  time  should  they  feel  so  disposed,  he  ordered  to 
confine  the  attack  to  the  village  named  Ackia,  which 
was  the  most  remote  from  the  one  under  the  English 
flag. 

The  order  for  the  attack  being  given,  the  division, 
commanded  by  Noyan  moved  briskly  on,  and  under 
the  protection  of  mantelets  carried  by  the  company  of 
negroes,  arrived  safely  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which 
the  villages  stood.  But  there,  one  of  the  negroes  being 
killed,  and  another  wounded,  the  rest  flung  down  the 
mantelets,  and  took  to  their  heels.  The  French  pushed 
on,  and  penetrated  into  the  village,  with  the  company 
of  grenadiers  at  their  head.  But  being  no  longer  un- 
der cover,  and  much  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  enemy, 
their  losses  were  very  heavy.  The  noble  and  brilliant 
Chevalier  de  Contre  Coeur,  a  favorite  in  the  army,  was 
killed,  and  a  number  of  soldiers  shared  his  fate,  or  were 
disabled.  However,  three  of  the  principal  fortified 
cabins  were  carried  by  the  impetuosity  of  the  French, 
with  several  smaller  ones  which  were  burned.  But  as 
a  pretty  considerable  intervening  space  remained  to  be 
gone  over,  to  assail  the  chief  fort  and  the  other  forti- 
fied cabins,  when  it  became  necessary  to  complete  the 
success  obtained,  Noyan,  who  had  headed  the  column 
of  attack,  turning  round,  saw  that  he  had  with  him  only 
the  officers  belonging  to  the  head  of  the  column,  some 
grenadiers,  and  a  dozen  of  volunteers.  The  troops  had 
been  dismayed  by  the  death  of  Captain  De  Lusser, 
with  many  of  his  grenadiers,  including  a  sergeant,  who 
had  fallen  when  they  had  attempted  to  cross  the 
space  separating  the  last  cabin  taken  from  the  next 


UEROIC  EFFORTS  TO  SAVE  THE  LIFE  OF  GRONDEL.       475 

to  be  taken.  Seeking  for  shelter  against  the  gall- 
ing fire  of  the  enemy,  the  French  had  clustered  be- 
hind the  cabins  of  which  they  had  already  taken 
possession,  and  it  was  impossible  for  the  officers  who 
commanded  the  tail  of  the  column,  to  drive  them 
away,  either  by  threats,  promises,  or  words  of  exhorta- 
tion, from  their  secure  position.  Putting  themselves  at 
the  head  of  a  few  of  their  best  soldiers,  in  order  to  en- 
courage the  rest,  the  officers  resolved  to  make  a  des- 
perate attempt  to  storm  the  fortified  blockhouse  they 
had  in  front  of  them.  But  in  an  instant,  their  com- 
mander the  Chevalier  de  Noyan,  D'Hauterive,  the  cap- 
tain of  the  grenadiers,  Grondel,  lieutenant  of  the  Swiss, 
De  Velles,  Montbrun,  and  many  other  officers,  were  dis- 
abled. Still  keeping  his  ground,  De  Noyan  sent  his 
aid-de-camp,  De  Juzan,  to  encourage  and  bring  up  to 
him  the  wavering  soldiers  who  had  slunk  behind  the 
cabins.  But,  in  making  the  effort,  this  officer  was 
killed,  and  his  death  increased  the  panic  of  the  troops. 
Grondel,  who  had  fallen  near  the  walls  of  the  enemy, 
had  been  abandoned,  and  a  party  of  Indians  was  pre- 
paring to  sally  out  to  scalp  him,  when  a  sergeant  of  the 
grenadiers,  ashamed  of  the  cowardice  which  had  left  an 
officer  in  this  perilous  and  defenseless  position,  took 
with  him  four  of  his  men,  and  rushed  to  the  rescue  of 
Grondel,  without  being  intimidated  by  bullets  as  thick 
as  hail.  These  five  intrepid  men  reached  in  safety 
the  spot  where  Grondel  lay,  and  were  in  the  act  of 
lifting  him  up  to  carry  him  away,  when  a  general  dis- 
charge from  the  fort  prostrated  every  one  of  them  dead 
by  the  side  of  him  they  had  come  to  save.  But  this 
noble  deed  was  not  lost  upon  the  army :  the  electrical 
stroke  had  been  given,  and  was  responded  to  by  the 
flashing  out  of  another  bright  spark  of  heroism.  A 
grenadier  named  Kegnisse,  rather  inflamed  than  das- 


476         THE  FRENCH  ARE  DEFEATED  IN  THE 

tardized  by  the  fate  of  his  companions,  dashed  out  of 
the  ranks  of  his  company,  ran  headlong  to  the  place 
where  Grondel  lay  weltering  in  his  blood  from  the  five 
wounds  he  had  received,  took  him  on  his  athletic 
shoulders,  and  carried  him  away  in  triumph  amid  the 
general  acclamations,  and  the  enthusiastic  bravos  of 
those  who  witnessed  the  feat.  To  the  astonishment  of 
all,  he  had  the  good  luck  to  pass  unscathed  through 
the  fire  which  was  poured  upon  him  by  the  enemy,  but 
the  inanimate  body  of  Grondel  which  he  was  transport- 
ing received  a  sixth  wound.  So  generously  saved  from 
the  Indian  tomahawk,  this  officer  slowly  recovered,  and 
was  subsequently  raised  to  a  high  rank  in  the  French 
army. 

The  spectacle  then  presented  to  the  sight  was  truly 
of  an  exciting  character.  The  village  attacked  was  en- 
veloped in  a  thick  smoke,  through  which  might  be  seen 
to  emerge  occasionally,  a  body  of  soldiers  carrying  away 
some  of  their  wounded.  Inside  of  the  smoke,  conceal- 
ed behind  the  heavy  logs  of  which  their  forts  and 
cabins  were  made  up,  the  Indians,  firing  through  their 
loopholes,  were  uttering  such  appalling  whoops  and 
shouts,  such  blood-freezing  shrieks  and  fiendish  yells, 
that  one  would  have  thought  that  thousands  of  demons 
were  rioting  in  one  of  their  favorite  haunts  in  Pande- 
monium. To  complete  the  illusion,  the  six  hundred 
Choctaws,  with  the  other  red  allies  of  the  French,  al- 
most in  a  state  of  nakedness,  and  painted  all  over  in 
the  most  frightful  colors,  as  they  do  when  they  go  to 
war,  to  make  themselves  more  hideously  terrific,  kept 
hovering  on  both  wings  of  the  French,  at  a  safe  distance 
from  the  balls  of  the  enemy,  while  they  fired  at  ran- 
dom into  the  vacant  air,  emulating  the  Chickasaws  in 
the  production  only  of  horrific  and  unearthly  sounds, 
gesticulating  wildly,  running  and  jumping,  as  if  they 


ATTACK  ON  ACKIA.  477 

were  delirious,  and  looking  like  maniac  devils  rather 
than  men.  One  could  have  imagined  that  they  were 
the  rabble  of  hell,  enraged  and  thrown  into  an  insurrec- 
tion, by  being  excluded  from  the  feast  prepared  for 
their  betters. 

Noyan,  seeing  at  last  that  he  was  exposing  himself 
and  his  bravest  companions  in  vain,  and  growing  faint 
under  the  effects  of  his  wound,  ordered  a  retreat  from 
the  open  field,  and  taking  shelter  in  one  of  the  cabins, 
sent  word  to  Bienville,  that  he  had  lost  about  seventy 
men,  of  whom  many  were  officers,  and  that  if  prompt 
relief  was  not  afforded,  no  officer  would  be  left  stand- 
ing on  his  feet,  as  they  would  all  have  to  share  the  fate 
of  those  who  had  fallen  :  that  himself,  although  from 
the  nature  of  his  wound  in  want  of  immediate  assist- 
ance, would  not  venture  to  retire  from  the  field  of 
action,  because  he  feared  it  would  be  the  signal  of  a 
general  scattering  away. 

On  hearing  this  report,  and  on  seeing  the  French 
and  Swiss  troops  beginning  to  give  ground,  while  dem- 
onstrations of  an  attack  on  their  flank  were  visible  in 
the  direction  of  the  great  Indian  villages  which  were 
further  off  at  the  extremity  of  the  prairie,  Bienville  sent 
Beauchainp  with  a  reserve  of  eighty  men,  to  support 
the  troops  engaged,  and  to  bring  off  the  wounded  and 
the  dead.  Beauchamp  did  not  execute  his  orders  with- 
out losing  several  men.  One  of  his-  officers,  by  the 
name  of  Favrot,  was  wounded ;  and  when  Beauchamp 
reached  the  spot  where  the  contest  had  been  the 
fiercest,  and  which  might,  if  the  expression  be  allowed, 
be  called  the  heart  of  the  battle,  he  found  all  the  offi- 
cers nobly  keeping  their  ground,  and  clustered  in  a 
solid  mass,  retaining  possession  with  desperate  energy 
of  the  foremost  cabin  they  had  gained,  nearest  to  the 
fort  of  the  enemy.  Beauchamp  gathered  together  all 


4:78  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  SCENE 

the  men  who  still  remained  on  that  bloody  field,  and 
retreated  in  good  order  toward  the  French  camp,  but  he 
could  not  prevent  some  of  the  dead  bodies  from  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  Indians,  who,  much  to  the  horror 
of  the  French,  impaled  the  naked  corpses  on  their  pal- 
isades. The  Choctaws  who,  so  far,  had  kept  aside  and 
left  the  French  to  shift  for  themselves,  seeing  them  in 
full  retreat,  seemed  disposed,  out  of  bravado,  to  show 
to  the  white  faces,  that  the  red  ones  could  do  what 
the  superior  race  had  failed  to  execute,  and  marched 
upon  the  village  as  if  determined  to  storm  it.  But  as 
they  approached,  a  general  discharge  from  the  enemy 
having  brought  down  twenty-two  of  their  men,  they 
did  not  wait  for  another,  and  scampered  away  like 
whipped  curs,  much  to  the  satisfaction  and  amusement 
of  the  French. 

This  engagement,  which  had  begun  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  had  lasted  three  hours.  It  had  ceased 
for  more  than  an  hour  and  a  half,  when,  on  looking 
down  on  the  lovely  scene  which  then  presented  itself  to 
the  eye,  one  would  have  been  struck  with  the  contrast 
which  it  had  offered  not  long  before.  To  the  wrell- 
known'  excitement,  noise,  turmoil,  confusion,  and  inci- 
dents of  a  battle,  had  succeeded  the  most  complete  re- 
pose and  the  most  absolute  silence.  The  sun  had  gone 
down  to  rest  behind  the  distant  trees  of  the  western 
horizon,  and  that  portion  of  the  sky  through  which  he 
had  lately  trod,  had  remained  gorgeously  illuminated 
by  the  lingering  rays  which  the  eastern  monarch  had 
left  behind  him  when  he  had  disappeared.  The  richly 
dyed  and  variegated  clouds,  which  rose  up  in  a  pyramid 
of  splendor,  looked  as  if  they  were  the  purple  mantle 
and  the  other  vestments  which  he  had  carelessly  drop- 
ped from  his  shoulders  when  he  had  sought  his  repose. 
A  sweet  breeze  was  sighing  and  gently  sweeping  across 


AFTER  THE  BATTLE.  479 

the  prairie  as  if  lulling  tired  nature  to  sleep.  In  the 
distance,  the  villages  of  the  Chickasaws  produced  rather 
a  picturesque  effect,  and  were  for  the  eye  an  agreeable 
resting-point  in  the  landscape.  Not  a  sound  was  to  be 
heard  coming  from  that  direction.  The  Indians  seemed 
to  have  dropped  asleep  in  the  lap  of  victory,  under  the 
protection  of  the  proud  banner  of  England,  which 
floated  over  their  heads.  There  was  but  one  spot 
where  a  hollow  murmuring  sound  might  have  been  no- 
ticed. It  was  in  the  French  camp,  situated  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  prairie,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  smaller  In- 
dian villages  which  the  French  had  met  on  entering  it, 
and  wrhich  seemed  to  stand  sentries  for  the  main  body 
of  the  larger  villages.  Encouraged  by  the  silence  which 
had  been  reigning  for  two  hours,  herds  of  deer  were  to 
be  seen  gracefully  stealing  away  through  the  prairie, 
and  its  feathered  tenants,  such  as  partridges,  wood- 
cocks, and  other  birds  were  heard  uttering,  in  their 
usual  notes,  their  last  farewell  to  the  departing  light  of 
day,  while  seeking  their  downy  nests  in  the  perfumed 
grass  enameled  with  myriads  of  wild  flowers.  The 
cattle  of  the  Indians,  which,  frightened  by  the  mus- 
ketry and  the  shouts  of  the  combatants,  had  fled  into 
the  neighboring  woods,  had  returned  to  the  prairie,  and 
were  seen  browsing  far  and  wide  over  that  broad  ex- 
panse of  pasture.  Invited  by  silence  and  solitude,  a 
troop  of  horses,  headed  by  a  beautiful  white  mare, 
which  seemed  their  queen,  came  leisurely  on,  to  drink 
at  the  brook  running  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  on  which 
stood  the  Indian  villages.  A  soft  glow  hung  over  the 
prairie,  and  it  looked  like  a  beautiful  picture,  of  which 
the  daa-k  foliaged  woods  far  off  were  the  appropriate 
frame. 

Not  unmindful  of  the  attractions  of  this  truly  south- 
ern scenery  of  the  North  American  continent,  and  re- 


480  DARING  FEAT  OF  SIMON  THE  FREE  BLACK. 

posing  under  the  broad  canopy  of  a  gigantic  oak  which 
stood  a  little  in  front  of  the  French  camp,  a  large  group 
of  officers  were  discussing  the  events  of  the  day.  With 
them  was  Simon,  a  free  black,  the  commander  of  the 
company  of  negroes  who  had  thrown  down  the  mante- 
lets they  were  carrying  to  protect  the  French  in  their 
attempt  to  storm  the  village  of  Ackia.  Simon,  when 
his  men  had  fled,  had  stood  his  ground,  and  had  re- 
mained with  the  French  officers  at  the  spot  the  most 
exposed,  until  the  retreat  was  sounded.  He  was  a  sort 
of  privileged  character,  and  he  was  sorely  vexed  at  the 
cowardice  displayed  by  those  of  his  color.  The  French 
officers,  who  were  amused  at  his  chagrin,  and  at  the 
comical  expressions  in  which  it  was  vented,  kept  ban- 
tering him  without  mercy  on  his  light-footed  compan- 
ions. Stung  to  the  heart,  Simon  exclaimed :  "  A  negro 
is  as  brave  as  any  body,  and  I  will  show  it  to  you." 
Seizing  a  rope  which  was  dangling  from  one  of  the 
tents,  he  rushed  headlong  toward  the  horses  which 
were  quietly  slaking  their  thirst  under  the  protection 
of  the  muskets  of  the  Indian  villages.  To  reach  the 
white  mare,  to  jump  on  her  back  with  the  agility  of  a 
tiger,  and  to  twist  round  her  head  and  mouth  the  rope 
with  which  to  control  and  rein  her,  was  the  affair  of  an 
instant.  But  that  instant  was  enough  for  the  appa- 
rently sleeping  village  to  show  itself  wide  awake,  and 
that  dark  mass  was  seen  as  if  spontaneously  girding  it- 
self with  a  zone  of  fire,  so  rapid  and  thick  were  the 
flashes  from  its  innumerable  loopholes.  But  away 
dashed  Simon  with  the  rapidity  of  lightning;  frantic 
with  affright,  madly  reared  and  plunged  the  conquered 
mare  under  the  strong  hand  of  Simon,  who  forced  her 
to  take  the  direction  of  the  French  camp,  where  he  ar- 
rived safely  amid  the  cheering  acclamations  of  the 
troops,  and  without  having  received  a  scratch  from  the 


DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  INDIAN  FORTIFICATIONS.  481 

balls  of  the  enemy.  This  noble  feat  silenced  at  once 
the  jests  of  which  Simon  thought  himself  the  victim. 

The  modest  abnegation  of  the  brave  grenadier,  Reg- 
nisse,  who  had  so  heroically  saved  Grondel,  must  not 
be  omitted  to  be  recorded  also.  When  the  battle  was 
over,  Bienville  wanted  to  make  him  an  officer  on  the 
spot,  but  Regnisse  obstinately  refused,  saying  that  he 
did  not  know  how  to  write,  and  that  having  no  educa- 
tion, he  was  not  worthy  of  the  grade  offered  to  him, 
and  that  every  one  of  his  brother  grenadiers  being  ca- 
pable of  doing  what  he  had  done,  he  did  not  deserve 
and  did  not  wish  to  be  elevated  above  them ;  his  scru- 
ples could  not  be  overcome,  but  his  comrades,  joyfully 
admitting  his  superiority,  insisted  upon  his  name  being 
put  at  the  top  of  the  roll  of  the  company,  and  upon  his 
taking  the  lead  of  them  when  under  arms.  On  that 
clay,  he  received  from  his  companions  the  title  of  "  the 
first  of  the  grenadiers" 

The  prairie  on  which  these  events  took  place,  was 
called  "  Straivlerry  Plain"  on  account  of  the  quantity 
of  the  fruit  of  this  name  with  which  it  was  covered, 
and  the  battle  was  called  "  the  Battle  of  Ackia?  from 
the  name  of  the  village  attacked. 

After  the  severe  repulse  which  the  French  had  met 
with,  nothing  remained  for  them  to  do  but  to  retreat. 
Writing  on  the  causes  of  the  failure  of  this  expedition, 
and  on  the  reasons  which  induced  him  not  to  renew 
the  attack,  Bienville  said: — "What  remains  to  add 
to  the  previous  information  given  by  me  with  regard 
to  the  fortifications  which  the  Indians  know  how  to 
make  is,  that  after  having  surrounded  their  cabins 
with  several  rows  of  thick  and  large  stakes,  they  dig 
the  ground  inside,  and  bury  themselves  up  to  the  pit 
of  their  arms,  which  they  keep  free  to  fire  through 
loopholes  cut  almost  even  with  the  ground.  But  they 

FF 


482  RETREAT  OF  THE 

obtain  more  advantages  from  the  natural  situation  of 
their  cabins,  which  are  at  a  distance  from  one  another, 
and  are  so  located  as  to  cross  their  fires,  than  from  any 
thing  which  English  art  can  teach  to  make  them 
stronger.  The  roof  of  these  cabins  is  a  thick  covering 
of  mud  and  wood,  which  is  proof  against  firebrands  or 
arrows  and  grenades,  so  that  they  could  be  penetrated 
through  only  by  bombs.  But  we  had  neither  cannon 
nor  mortars.  After  all,  when  I  saw  the  number  of  our 
wounded,  I  did  not  doubt  but  that  I  was  obliged  to 
give  up  the  game,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  which  I 
foresaw  of  transporting  them.  In  fact,  I  had  no  choice, 
because  I  feared  to  be  deserted  by  the  Choctaws,  who 
were  famished.  In  that  case,  we  should  have  been  har- 
assed in  the  woods,  and  attacked  when  crossing  the 
ravines;  our  loss  then  might  have  been  very  great. 
What  justified  my  fears,  is,  that  I  was  obliged  to  divide 
with  the  Choctaws  our  provisions,  to  induce  them  to 
come  with  us." 

On  the  27th  of  May,  the  day  following  that  of  the 
battle,  Bienville  had  litters  made  to  transport  the 
wounded ;  and  at  one  in  the  afternoon,  the  army  form- 
ing itself  into  two  columns,  which  had  been  the  order  of 
marching  when  coming,  began  its  rptrograde  movement. 
The  soldiers,  who  were  very  much  worn  out  by  the 
fatigues  they  had  undergone,  and  whose  baggage  was 
already  a  full  load,  had  infinite  pains  in  carrying  on  the 
wounded,  and  it  was  dark  when  the  army  had  gone 
four  miles  and  a  half  through  the  woods.  It  having 
become  necessary  to  encamp  for  the  night,  such  slow 
marching  disgusted  the  Choctaws ;  and  Red  Shoe,  who 
nourished  an  old  grudge  against  the  French,  with  a  few 
others,  endeavored  to  prevail  upon  their  people  to 
abandon  their  white  allies.  In  order  to  counteract 
their  intrigues,  Bienville  sent  for  the  great  chief  of  the 


FRENCH  ARMY.  483 

Choctaws,  and  expostulating  with  him,  begged  him  to 
recollect  that  it  was  to  please  the  Choctaws  that  he 
had  attacked  the  Chickasaws,  instead  of  going  round 
their  villages  to  assail  the  Natchez,  as  was  his  original 
intention,  and  that  the  Choctaws  were,  therefore,  the 
causes  of  the  defeat  of  the  French,  whom  they  ought  to 
desert  much  less  under  such  circumstances  than  under 
any  other.  The  eloquence  of  Bienville  touched  the 
great  chief,  who  ordered  Red  Shoe  to  desist  from  his 
designs.  A  violent  altercation  arose  between  them, 
and  the  great  chief,  drawing  a  pistol  from  his  belt,  was 
in  the  act  of  firing  at  Red  Shoe,  when  his  arm  was 
arrested  by  Bienville.  At  last,  all  difficulties  were  set- 
tled, and  it  was  agreed  that  every  Indian  chief  would 
have  one  wounded  Frenchman  carried  by  his  men. 
Alibamon  Mengo,  the  chief  who  had  been  so  useful  to 
the  French  when  they  besieged  the  Natchez,  and  whose 
interference  had  induced  the  enemy  to  come  to  terms, 
gave  the  example,  and  had  Bienville's  nephew,  Nbyan, 
carried  by  his  people.  On  the  29th,  the  French  reached 
the  place  where  they  had  left  their  boats,  after  having 
lost  on  the  way  two  men,  who  died  of  their  wounds. 

The  French  found  the  river  falling  so  fast,  that  they 
hastened  to  embark  on  that  same  day,  and  so  low  al- 
ready was  the  water,  that  it  became  hard  work  in 
several  places  to  push  the  boats  through.  From  this 
circumstance,  Bienville  had  cause  to  congratulate  him- 
self on  the  resolution  he  had  taken  to  retreat,  it  being 
evident  that,  a  few  days  later,  he  would  have  been 
obliged  to  set  fire  to  his  boats,  and  to  return  by  land, 
which  would  have  been  attended  with  immense  diffi- 
culties and  dangers. 

The  French  arrived  at  the  Tombecbee  settlement  on 
the  2d  of  June,  and  the  wounded  were  immediately  sent 
forward  with  all  the  surgeons.  On  the  3d,  Bienville 


4:84:  BIENVILLFS  ACCOUNT  OF  HIS  TROOPS. 

departed  from  Tombecbee,  where  he  left  Captain  De 
Berthel  in  command,  with  a  garrison  of  thirty  French- 
men and  twenty  Swiss.  They  were  supplied  with  pro- 
visions to  last  for  the  balance  of  the  year,  and  with  mer- 
chandise to  trade  with  the  Indians.  Bienville  drew  the 
plan  of  the  fortifications  which  he  wished  to  be  made, 
and  instructed  Berthel  to  have  them  erected  as  soon  as 
possible  on  the  spot  he  had  designated. 

On  his  return  to  New  Orleans,  Bienville  wrote  to  the 
minister  of  the  colonial  department :  "  Your  excellency 
will  have  seen  by  the  accounts  of  this  laborious  cam- 
paign, which  I  have  transmitted  to  the  government, 
that  in  its  conception  and  execution,  and  in  the  closing 
retreat,  I  made  the  best  use  I  could  of  the  means  I  had 
at  my  disposal,  and  you  will  also  have  remarked  that, 
after  having  suffered  in  my  preparations  from  delays 
which  I  could  not  anticipate,  much  less  could  I  foresee 
the  cowardice  of  the  troops  put  under  my  orders.  It 
is  true  that,  considering  the  pitiful  recruits  of  black- 
guards which  are  sent  here,  one  ought  never  to  enter- 
tain the  flattering  hope  of  making  soldiers  of  them. 
What  is  worse,  is  the  obligation  under  which  I  am, 
with  such  troops,  to  hazard  the  reputation  of  the  nation, 
and  to  expose  our  officers  to  the  necessity  of  meeting 
death  or  dishonor.  The  recruits  recently  arrived  by 
the  Gironde  are  still  inferior  to  the  preceding  ones. 
There  are  but  one  or  two  men  among  them  whose  size 
is  above  five  feet ;  as  to  the  rest,  they  are  under  four 
feet  ten  inches.  With  regard  to  their  moral  character, 
it  is  sufficient  to  state  that,  out  of  fifty-two  who  have 
lately  been  sent  here,  more  than  one  half  have  already 
been  whipped  for  larceny.  In  a  word,  these  useless 
beings  are  not  worth  the  food  bestowed  upon  them : 
they  are  burdens  to  the  colony,  and  from  them  no  effi- 
cient military  service  is  to  be  expected." 


ACCOUNT  OF  D'ARTAGTJETTES  EXPEDITION.  485 

It  was  only  at  New  Orleans  that  Bienville  learned 
that  D'Artaguette  had  arrived  before  him  at  the  Chick- 
asaw  villages,  and  had  met  with  a  signal  defeat  and 
a  tragical  death.  In  conformity  with  the  instructions 
he  had  received,  D'Artaguette  had  displayed  consider- 
able activity,  and  had  reached,  on  the  4th  of  March,  a 
place  then  called  Ecores  a  Prudfiomme,  on  the  Missis- 
sippi, with  thirty  soldiers,  one  hundred  volunteers,  and 
almost  all  the  Indians  of  the  Kaskaskia  village.  There 
he  was  joined  by  De  Vincennes  with  forty  Iroquois,  and 
all  the  Indians  of  the  Wabash  tribe.  De  Montcherval, 
with  the  Cahokias  and  the  Mitchigamias,  was  daily 
expected.  De  Grandpre,  who  commanded  at  the  Ar- 
kansas, had  dispatched  twenty-eight  warriors  of  that 
tribe  to  ascertain  whether  D'Artaguette  was  at  the 
Ecores  a  Prudhomme,  and  to  come  back  to  him  with 
that  information.  These  Indians,  when  they  reached 
the  spot,  finding  that  D'Artaguette  was  moving  away, 
followed  him,  and  disregarded  the  instructions  of  Grand- 
pre, who  in  vain  waited  for  their  return.  D'Artaguette 
proceeded  by  short  stages,  in  order  to  give  time  to 
Montcherval  and  Grandpre  to  join  him.  When  he  ar- 
rived on  the  territory  of  the  Chickasaws,  he  sent  scouts 
to  discover  tidings  of  Bienville's  army.  These  scouts 
soon  returned,  and  reported  that  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Chickasaw  villages,  there  were  no  vestiges  of  the 
French  forces. 

On  the  day  following  the  return  of  these  spies,  a 
courier  brought  to  D'Artaguette  a  letter,  in  which  he 
was  informed  that  unexpected  delays  and  obstacles  in 
the  preparations  to  be  made,  would  prevent  Bienville 
from  being  at  the  Chickasaws  before  the  end  of  April, 
which  would  be  the  soonest,  wherefore  he  was  requested 
to  take  his  measures  accordingly.  On  the  reception  of 
this  letter,  D'Artaguette  convened  a  council  of  war, 


486        D'ARTAGUETTE  DEFEATED  BY  THE  CHICKASAWS. 

composed  of  officers  and  of  Indian  chiefs.  The  Indians 
were  for  an  immediate  attack,  representing  that  they 
had  but  few  provisions,  and  therefore  would  be  obliged 
to  abandon  the  French  in  a  short  time ;  that  their  spies 
had  reported  that,  at  the  extremity  of  the  prairie  where 
the  Chickasaw  villages  were  situated,  there  was  an  iso- 
lated one,  (probably  the  village  of  the  Natchez  refugees) 
which  had  no  more  than  thirty  cabins,  of  which,  no 
doubt,  easy  possession  could  be  taken,  and  that  the 
provisions  they  would  find  there  would  enable  the 
whole  army  to  wait  comfortably  for  the  arrival  of 
Bienville,  under  the  protection  of  fortifications  which 
would  soon  be  erected.  Almost  all  of  the  French 
officers  were  of  the  same  opinion,  and  the  attack  was 
resolved  upon.  At  that  moment,  the  allied  forces  were 
composed  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  Frenchmen  and  of 
three  hundred  and  sixty-six  Indians. 

Having  taken  the  determination  to  attack,  the  French 
marched  on  briskly,  and  came,  without  being  discov- 
ered, as  they  thought,  within  the  distance  of  a  mile  from 
the  isolated  village,  on  Palm  Sunday.  Leaving  all  his 
baggage  to  the  keeping  of  thirty  men  commanded  by 
Frontigny,  D'Artaguette  marched  on  the  village,  which 
he  attacked  with  great  vigor.  But  hardly  had  the  en- 
gagement begun,  when  four  or  five  hundred  Indians, 
who  were  headed  by  about  thirty  Englishmen,  and  who 
had  kept  themselves  concealed  behind  a  neighboring 
hill,  fell  upon  the  assailants  with  such  impetuosity,  and 
so  unexpectedly,  that  the  Miamis  and  the  Illinois  took 
to  flight.  Thirty-eight  Iroquois,  and  the  twenty-eight 
Arkansas  sent  by  Grandpre,  were  the  only  Indians 
that  stood  by  the  French,  who  fought  with  desperate 
,valor  against  the  overwhelming  odds  they  had  to  con- 
tend with.  Lieutenant  St.  Ange  was  the  first  to  fall, 
then  the  Ensigns  De  Coulanges,  De  la  Graviere,  and 


HIS  MELANCHOLY  FATE.  487 

De  Courtigny,  with  six  of  the  militia  officers.  Still  the 
French,  hemmed  in  on  every  side,  did  not  give  way  an 
inch.  But  soon,  Captain  Des  Essarts,  Lieutenant 
Langlois,  and  Ensign  Levieux,  were  shot  down.  Few 
officers  remained  on  their  legs,  and  the  French,  having 
lost  forty-five  men  out  of  one  hundred  that  they  were, 
thought  that  it  was  high  time  to  operate  a  retreat  tow- 
ard their  baggage,  where  they  expected  to  be  support- 
ed by  the  detachment  of  thirty  men  they  had  left  there. 
But  they  were  pursued  with  such  obstinate  fury  by  the 
Chickasaws,  that,  at  last,  they  were  completely  routed 
in  spite  of  the  courage  and  discipline  which  they  had 
displayed.  D'Artaguette,  who  had  performed  prod- 
igies of  valor,  had  fallen  covered  with  wounds,  and  was 
taken  prisoner,  with  Father  Senac,  a  Jesuit,  Du  Tisne, 
an  officer  of  regulars,  Lalande,  a  militia  captain,  and 
five  or  six  soldiers  and  militia  privates,  making  nine- 
teen in  all.  The  Chickasaws  gave  up  the  pin-suit  of  the 
fugitives  only  after  having  killed  fifty  of  them,  and 
wounded  many  others.  Not  one  man  would  have  es- 
caped, if  a  violent  storm  had  not  arisen,  and  checked 
the  pursuers.  The  Chickasaws  took  possession  of  all 
the  provisions  and  baggage  of  the  French,  with  four 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  powder,  twelve  thousand 
bullets,  and  eleven  horses.  Their  victory  was  as  com- 
plete as  possible,  and  the  ammunition  which  fell  into 
their  hands  was  of  great  use  to  them,  in  helping  them 
to  resist  the  subsequent  attack  of  Bienville. 

D'Artaguette,  Father  Senac,  and  fifteen  others  were 
burned  alive,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Indians  in 
festivals  for  victories  obtained,  and  the  remaining  two 
captains  were  set  aside,  to  be  exchanged  for  a  Chicka- 
saw  warrior  who  was  in  the  hands  of  the  French.  This 
exchange  effectually  took  place  some  time  after. 

The  fugitives,  on  the  second  day  of  their  flight,  met 


488      BE AUCH AMP'S  PLAN  FOR  ANOTHER  ATTACK. 

Montcherval,  who  was  following  D'Artaguette  with  one 
hundred  and  sixty  Indians,  and  fourteen  Frenchmen. 
Montcherval  gathered  together  the  broken  remnants 
of  D'Artaguette's  army,  and  fell  back,  after  having  dis- 
patched a  courier  to  Grandpre.  The  courier  met  this 
officer  on  Margot  River,  with  all  the  warriors  of  the 
Arkansas  tribe.  He  was  waiting  for  the  return  of  the 
emissary  he  had  sent  to  bring  him  back  tidings  of 
D'Artaguette.  On  hearing  of  the  defeat  of  the  French, 
he  returned  to  the  settlement  where  he  commanded. 

The  melancholy  fate  of  D'Artaguette  and  his  com- 
panions produced  on  the  colony  almost  as  painful  an 
impression  as  the  Natchez  massacre ;  and  the  bad  suc- 
cess of  Bienville's  expedition  was  another  cause  of 
humiliation,  which  contributed  to  increase  the  gloom 
hanging  over  the  country.  De  Beauchamp,  who,  it  will 
be  recollected,  had  been  sent  by  Bienville  to  support 
Noyan  when  attacking  the  village  of  Ackia,  and  to  fa- 
cilitate his  retreat,  writing  on  this  expedition,  says  : — 
"  To  make  an  end  of  the  Chickasaw  war,  it  is  necessary 
to  have  a  detachment  of  workmen,  of  miners  and  bom- 
bardiers, with  the  implements  and  instruments  neces- 
sary to  ferret  out  those  savages,  who  burrow  like 
badgers  in  their  cabins,  which  are  very  much  like  ovens. 
If  fire  is  set  to  them,  the  straw  with  which  they  are 
thatched  will  be  consumed,  but  the  cabin  itself,  the 
roof  and  lateral  walls  of  which  are  made  of  mud  one 
foot  thick,  will  not  burn.  Besides,  these  cabins  which 
are  fortified,  are  so  situated  that  they  defend  one 
another.  It  is  not  enough  to  take  three  or  four  of 
them :  all  must  be  taken,  or  there  is  no  security.  The 
ground  being  of  a  nature  easy  to  be  worked,  miners  are 
necessary  to  drive  those  savages  out  of  their  cabins ; 
otherwise  we  should  be  exposed  to  lose,  in  attacking 
them,  a  considerable  number  of  men." 


SKETCH  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  GRONDEL.  489 

The  failure  of  this  expedition  seems  to  have  been 
due  to  a  want  of  concert  and  foresight.  It  is  probable 
that  if  the  forces  commanded  by  Bienville,  D'Ar- 
taguette,  Montcherval,  and  Grandpre,  had  arrived  at 
the  same  time,  and  attacked  from  different  points,  the 
result  would  have  been  favorable  to  the  French.  As 
it  was,  this  campaign  proved  disastrous  in  the  extreme. 
D'Artaguette's  forces  had  been  completely  crushed,  and 
Bienville  had  lost  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  men. 
The  expenses  also  had  been  very  great,  and  had  turned 
out  to  be  entirely  fruitless.  These  losses  were  so  many 
deductions  to  be  made  from  the  scanty  resources  of  the 
colony. 

Lieutenant  John  Philip  Goujon  de  Grondel,  who  had 
been  so  severely  wounded  at  the  attack  on  the  village 
of  Ackia,  was  three  years  without  being  able  to  resume 
active  service.  He  was  born  at  Severne,  in  the  French 
province  of  Alsatia,  on  the  27th  of  November,  1714, 
and  was  the  son  of  Lieutenant-colonel  Grondel,  who 
served  in  the  Swiss  regiment  called  the  Karrer  regi- 
ment, from  the  name  of  its  colonel,  the  Chevalier  de 
Karrer.  Grondel  the  father,  and  Karrer,  were  bound 
by  the  ties  of  the  most  intimate  friendship  ;  and  Gron- 
del, when  his  son  had  hardly  attained  the  age  of  five 
years  and  a  half,  availing  himself  of  the  privilege  grant- 
ed to  the  sons  of  gentlemen  engaged  in  the  king's  ser- 
vice, had  him  registered  as  Cadet*  on  the  roll  of  the 
regiment  of  his  friend  Karrer.  In  November,  1731, 
young  Grondel  embarked  for  Louisiana  with  the 
Karrer  regiment,  in  which  he  had  become  an  officer, 
and  arrived  at  last  at  New  Orleans,  after  a  laborious 
and  tempestuous  voyage  of  nearly  four  months.  He 
was  stationed  for  two  years  at  Pointe  Coupee,  where  he 

*  A  Cadet  is  a  person  of  gentle  blood  -who  serves  as  a  volunteer,  in  expectation 
of  a  promised  commission. 


490  SKETCH  OF  THE 

distinguished  himself  in  several  skirmishes  against  the 
Indians.  In  1734,  he  was  ordered  to  Mobile,  where  he 
made  himself  conspicuous  by  his  duels,  his  gayety,  the 
sociability  of  his  manners,  his  gallantries,  and  his  ma- 
rauding excursions  against  the  Indians,  in  which  he  dis- 
played great  daring.  In  1736,  Bienville  was  prepar- 
ing for  his  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws,  and 
Grondel  was  at  the  Tombecbee  depot,  when  it  was  dis- 
covered' that  a  sergeant,  by  the  name  of  Montfort,  had 
seduced  the  small  garrison  of  that  settlement,  and  had 
prevailed  upon  them  to  rise  upon  their  officers.  It  was 
Grondel  who,  by  his  rapidity  of  action,  disconcerted 
the  plan  of  the  rebels,  and  who  arrested  Montfort  with 
his  own  hands.  It  is  already  known  how  bravely  he 
behaved  at  the  siege  of  the  Chickasaw  villages.  The 
minister  of  the  colonial  department,  on  being  informed 
of  his  conduct  in  that  engagement,  in  which  he  was  so 
dangerously  wounded,  sent  him  a  gratuity  of  six  hun- 
dred livres,  with  a  promise  of  the  cross  of  St.  Louis. 

In  1740,  Grondel  was  the  hero  of  an  anecdote  which 
is  characteristic  of  the  man  who  is  the  subject  of  this 
biographical  sketch,  and  of  the  manners  of  the  time. 
It  was  night,  one  of  those  glorious  nights  which  are  so 
peculiar  to  the  southern  latitude  of  Louisiana ;  the  sky 
seemed  an  ocean  of  soft  liquid  light,  through  which  the 
full  moon  was  serenely  floating,  when  several  officers, 
kept  out  of  their  beds  by  the  beauty  and  purity  of  the 
atmosphere,  were  promenading  on  the  bank  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, in  front  of  the  public  square  of  the  city  of  New 
Orleans.  They  had  exhausted  all  subjects  of  conversa- 
tion, and  in  spite  of  the  buoyancy  of  their  spirits,  had 
become  intolerably  dull.  One  of  them  exclaimed, 
"  What  a  pity  we  have  no  women  at  hand !  We  would 
dance.  In  the  devil's  name,  what  shall  we  do  to  amuse 
ourselves  in  such  fine  weather  as  this?"  "In  God's 


LIFE  OF  GRONDEL.  491 

name,"  replied  Grondel,  "  how  can  you  be  at  a  loss  ? 
Let  us  fight.  It  is  the  best  way  to  kill  time."  No 
sooner  said  than  done.  At  it  they  went,  each  one 
paired  with  another,  and  passes  after  passes  were  ex- 
changed in  the  most  jocose  and  friendly  manner  imagi- 
nable, until  one  of  them  received  a  slight  thrust  from 
Grondel,  which  put  an  end  to  this  amicable  entertain- 
ment. 

In  1741,  a  more  serious  turn  of  mind  seemed  to  have 
come  upon  Grondel,  and  he  married  the  daughter  of 
Captain  Du  Tisne,  one  of  the  most  esteemed  and  effi- 
cient officers  in  Louisiana,  whose  son  had  perished  in 
the  ill-fated  D'Artaguette  expedition.  From  that  time 
until  1750,  when  he  became  a  captain  of  the  Swiss  gren- 
adiers, he  was  employed  in  several  military  expeditions 
and  diplomatic  negotiations  with  the  Indians,  in  which 
he  acquitted  himself  with  great  credit  to  himself  and  to 
the  satisfaction  of  his  chiefs.  In  1753,  he  was  rewarded 
for  his  services  by  the  decoration  of  the  cross  of  St 
Louis,  which  had  long  been  promised  to  him.  Shortly 
after,  happening  to  be  at  Dauphine  Island  when  a 
Spanish  vessel  was  wrecked  and  went  to  pieces  on 
that  coast,  Grondel  flung  himself  into  the  sea,  and 
being  an  expert  swimmer,  saved  several  of  the  victims 
of  the  storm  who  were  struggling  against  death.  His 
heroic  example  was  followed  with  equal  success  by 
others,  who  would  have  felt  ashamed  of  their  inaction. 
In  1758,  Grondel  returned  to  New  Orleans  from  Mo- 
bile, and  having  been  enriched  by  an  heritage  which 
befell  his  wife,  became  a  large  planter  and  the  lord  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  negroes.  But  in  1759,  he  be- 
came embroiled  in  a  quarrel  with  Governor  Kerlerec, 
who  accused  him  of  insubordination  and  of  several 
other  offenses,  for  which  he  was  thrown  into  prison, 
where  he  remained  three  years.  In  the  month  of  Au- 


492  SKETCH  OF  THE 

gust,  1762,  he  was  put  by  the  governor  on  board  of  a 
vessel,  in  company  with  the  Intendant  Rochemore  and 
several  other  officers,  whom  the  governor  charged  with 
being  engaged  in  a  scheme  of  insurrection,  and  who 
were  sent  to  France  to  be  finally  tried.  In  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  after  having  run  the  risk  of  being  wrecked, 
they  were  chased  for  a  while  by  an  English  frigate,  and 
escaped  with  difficulty  by  the  chance  favor  of  a  dark 
night.  The  next  day,  at  the  entrance  of  the  Bahama 
channel,  they  met  an  English  privateer,  who  immedi- 
ately ran  upon  them.  The  French  vessel  tried  in  vain 
to  avoid  her  antagonist,  than  which  she  was  consider- 
ably weaker.  The  French  officers  having  met  in  coun- 
cil to  deliberate  on  the  propriety  of  surrendering  with- 
out an  ineffectual  struggle,  Grondel  strenuously  opposed 
any  proposition  of  the  kind,  and  affirmed  that  he  had 
the  presentiment  of  victory.  His  ardor  was  communi- 
cative, and  his  companions  unanimously  resolved  to 
fight.  Grondel  having  taken  the  command  of  the  quar- 
ter-deck, the  engagement  soon  began,  and  the  English 
ship  became  so  crippled  that  she  was  obliged  to  drop 
away  and  to  shrink  from  the  contest.  A  few  days 
after,  Grondel  who,  by  tacit  consent,  had  taken  the 
military  command  of  the  French  vessel,  attacked  a 
large  English  merchantman,  and  after  a  short  engage- 
ment, in  which  he  disabled  several  of  the  crew  of  his 
enemy,  took  possession  of  the  English  vessel.  He  dis- 
missed her  after  having  forced  her  captain  to  give  to 
the  French  all  the  provisions  of  which  they  stood  in 
need,  and  a  draft  of  forty  thousand  crowns,  which  was 
paid  on  presentation. 

The  danger  of  being  taken  by  the  masters  of  the  sea, 
was  not  the  only  one  the  French  had  to  run.  During 
a  voyage  of  ninety-four  days,  they  were  constantly 
beaten  by  storms,  until  at  last  they  were  driven  into 


LIFE  OF  GRONDEL.  493 

the  port  of  La  Coruna  in  Spain,  on  the  1st  of  Novem- 
ber, 1762.  After  having  rested  three  weeks  in  that 
city,  Grondel  departed  with  seven  or  eight  of  his  com- 
panions, to  go  by  land  to  Bordeaux.  Rochemore,  the 
intendant,  with  the  rest  of  the  passengers,  re-embarked 
in  their  ship,  which  had  been  repaired.  Grondel  and 
his  followers  were  all  mounted  on  mules,  and  slowly 
pursued  their  way  to  the  French  frontiers.  As  it  was 
very  cold,  he  was  wrapped  up  in  a  sort  of  Canadian 
morning  gown  made  of  very  fine  wool,  and  which,  hav- 
ing a  hood,  resembled  the  gown  of  a  Capuchin.  He 
had  appended  to  it  his  cross  of  St.  Louis,  and  as  he  and 
his  suite  had  a  very  respectable  appearance,  he  was 
taken  for  a  bishop  by  the  peasants,  who  devoutly 
kneeled  and  crossed  themselves  as  he  passed. '  On 
these  occasions,  the  faithful  who  courted  Grondel's  ben- 
ediction, were  blessed  by  him  with  a  sanctimonious 
gravity  which  drew  from  his  companions  peals  of 
laughter  as  soon  as  they  were  out  of  sight  of  the  Span- 
iards. This  was  related  by  them  as  one  of  the  most 
amusing  incidents  of  their  journey,  and  was  in  harmony 
with  the  levity  of  the  time.  After  twenty-four  days 
of  painful  traveling  in  an  inclement  season,  Grondel 
arrived  at  Bayonne  in  France,  where  the  Marquis 
d'Arnon,  who  commanded  in  that  city,  and  who  was  a 
friend  of  his  colonel,  received  him  with  warm  demon- 
strations of  satisfaction  and  respect,  and  gave  a  public 
festival  in  his  honor.  At  Bordeaux,  the  celebrated 
Duke  of  Richelieu,  who  was  governor-general  of  the 
province  of  Guienne,  treated  him  with  the  most  gra- 
cious affability,  and  Grondel,  although  only  a  captain, 
was  informed  that  a  seat  would  be  daily  reserved  for 
him  at  the  marshal's  table.  From  Bordeaux  he  went 
to  visit  at  Rochefort  the  staff  officers  of  his  regiment, 
which  had  been  recalled  to  France,  and  their  joy  at 


494  SKETCH  OF  THE 

seeing  him  showed  what  a  hold  he  had  on  their 
hearts. 

On  the  17th  of  January,  1763,  Grondel  arrived  in 
Paris ;  the  next  day  he  went  and  presented  his  respects 
to  the  Count  of  Hall  will,  his  late  colonel,  recently  pro- 
moted to  the  rank  of  general,  and  to  whom  he  com- 
plained of  the  persecution  of  which  he  was  the  object 
from  the  governor  of  Louisiana.  General  Hall  will  took 
him  under  his  protection,  and  carried  him  to  Versailles, 
where  he  presented  him  to  the  minister,  the  Duke  of 
Choiseul,  who  promised  him  promotion,  if,  on  his  trial, 
he  was  found  innocent  of  the  charges  preferred  against 
him.  Kerlerec,  the  governor  of  Louisiana,  had  also 
been  summoned  to  France,  to  make  good  the  very 
grave  accusations  he  had  brought  against  the  intendant 
Rochemore  and  so  many  officers.  Kerlerec  was  a  kins- 
man of  Marshal  D'Estrees,  and  on  his  arrival  in  France, 
making  use  of  the  influence  of  this  nobleman  at  court, 
obtained  an  order  of  arrest  (lettre  de  cachet)  against 
Grondel,  who,  on  the  9th  of  April,  1765,  was  carried  to 
the  Bastile,  and  whose  papers  were  seized  at  his  domi- 
cil,  and  put  under  seal.  On  the  tenth  day  of  his  incar- 
ceration, he  was  interrogated  by  M.  de  Sartines,  the 
minister  of  police,  on  whom  he  produced  so  favorable 
an  impression,  that  a  few  days  after  he  was  set  at  lib- 
erty. He  immediately  left  Paris  in  company  with  the 
Duke  of  Aiguillon,  a  friend  of  his  father,  to  visit  at 
Port  Louis  that  gentleman,  who  was  then  one  hundred 
years  old,  and  who  reached  the  age  of  one  hundred  and 
seven. 

After  having  remained  eighteen  days  under  the  pa- 
rental roof,  Grondel  returned  to  Paris  to  sue  for  justice 
in  his  conflict  with  the  Governor  of  Louisiana.  On  the 
llth  of  August,  1769,  after  long  delays,  a  judgment 
was  rendered  in  his  favor,  and  soon  after  he  was  ap- 


LIFE  OF  GRONDEL.  495 

pointed  lieutenant-colonel,  with  a  gratuity  of  two  thou- 
sand five  hundred  livres,  and  an  annual  pension  of 
eighteen  hundred  livres.  These  favors  were  rendered 
more  valuable  by  being  accompanied  with  a  letter  from 
the  minister  of  marine,  Duke  of  Praslin,  in  which  the 
duke  informed  Grondel  that  all  these  rewards  had  been 
granted  as  testimonials  of  the  high  sense  which  the  king 
had  of  his  services.  In  the  mean  time,  Louisiana  hav- 
ing been  ceded  to  Spain,  Grondel  gave  up  all  thoughts 
of  returning  to  that  colony,  and  was  appointed,  on  the 
30th  of  December,  1772,  to  the  command  of  the  city 
of  Lerient.  According  to  his  instructions,  Grondel's 
wife  sold  all  his  property  in  Louisiana,  and  joined  him 
in  1776,  with  all  his  family,  except  two  daughters,  who 
had  married  in  the  colony.  In  1788,  Grondel  had 
risen  to  the  grade  of  brigadier-general,  which  was  be- 
stowed on  him  without  any  solicitations  on  his  part. 
The  great  revolution  which  was  to  shatter  to  pieces  the 
throne  of  Louis  the  XVIth,  was  moving  forward  with 
fearful  rapidity,  and  General  Grondel  who,  owing  to  his 
advanced  age,  ceased  to  be  on  active  service,  retired  to 
Nemours  to  end  his  days  in  such  peace  as  was  com- 
patible with  the  storm  which  shook  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  state. 

In  1792,  General  Grondel  was  denounced  as  an  aris- 
tocrat and  thrown  into  prison,  but  after  an  incarcera- 
tion of  eight  days,  he  was  restored  to  his  family  and 
friends.  Shortly  after,  on  the  29th  of  April,  he  was 
unanimously  elected  by  the  inhabitants  of  Nemours 
commanding-general  of  the  national  guards  of  that  city, 
and  he  discharged  the  duties  of  this  elevated  position 
until  the  1st  of  September,  1793.  While  commander 
of  the  national  guards  of  Nemours,  two  corps  of  troops 
that  were  passing  through  having  come  to  blows,  Gen- 
eral Grondel  had  fhe  merit  of  quelling  the  riot  by 


4:96  CLOSE  OF  GRONDEL'S  HISTORY. 

throwing  himself  among  the  combatants,  whom  he  awed 
into  submission  by  his  firmness  and  his  venerable  aspect ; 
and  the  municipal  authorities  of  Nemours  voted  him 
thanks  for  his  noble  conduct.  In  1796,  overwhelmed 
with  grief  at  the  horrors  which  had  swept  over  France, 
he  left  Nemours,  and  retired  to  Salins,  near  Montereau. 
He  was  one  of  those  who  were  most  enthusiastic  in 
favor  of  Bonaparte,  when  the  future  despot  struck,  on 
the  18^  Brwmaire,  his  celebrated  blow  against  the 
legislative  assemblies  of  France.  On  this  occasion, 
Baudry  de  Lozieres  relates  that  Grondel  rapturously 
exclaimed :  u  I  have  lived  long  enough ;  France  is  saved 
and  her  wounds  are  closed :  be  it  forever  recorded,  to 
the  eternal  glory  of  the  God  who  has  come  down  from 
heaven  to  confer  upon  us  so  many  benefits!  This 
great  restorer  is  above  the  human  species ;  for  it  does 
not  belong  to  man  to  execute  so  many  gigantic  and 
immortal  things,  and  to  do  so  in  such  a  short  space  of 
time." 

So  intense  was  Grondel's  admiration  for  Bonaparte, 
that,  on  his  being  presented  to  the  First  Consul,  the 
octogenarian  veteran  actually  sobbed  and  shed  tears  on 
the  hand  of  the  youthful  general  who  had  become  the 
master  of  France.  The  officer  who,  in  1732,  had  been 
fighting  in  Louisiana  to  secure  that  important  colony 
to  his  country,  can  not  but  have  felt  deeply  grateful,  in 
1802,  to  the  hero  who  had  wrested  that  rich  possession 
from  Spain,  and  reannexed  it  to  the  domains  of  France. 
But  General  Grondel's  joy  was  not  of  long  duration, 
and  he  lived  to  see  Louisiana  escape  from  the  grasp  of 
France  to  fall  into  the  motherly  lap  of  the  United 
States  of  America. 


SEVENTH   LECTURE. 

STATE  OF  AGRICULTURE  IN  1736 — EXEMPTION  FROM  DUTIES  ON  CERTAIN  ARTICLES 
OF  IMPORTATION  AND  EXPORTATION — WAR  BETWEEN  THE  CHOCTAWS  AND  CHICK- 
ASAWS —  SINGULAR  JUDICIAL  PROCEEDING  IN  1738  —  BIENVILLE'S  DISPATCH  ox 
THE  SAND-BARS  AT  THE  MOUTH  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  —  DE  NOAILLES  is  SENT  TO 
LOUISIANA  TO  COMMAND  AN  EXPEDITION  AGAINST  THE  CHICKASAWS — BIENVILLE'S 
JEALOUSY  —  INTRIGUES  OF  THE  INDIAN,  RED  SHOE  —  GENERAL  RENDEZVOUS  or 
THE  FP..ENCH  AT  THE  MOUTH  OF  RIVER  MARGOT — FAILURE  OF  THAT  EXPEDITION 

ITS  PROBABLE  CAUSES BlENVILLE's  APOLOGY EFFECTS  OF  A  HURRICANE 

SITUATION  OF  THE  COLONY  IN  1741— HEROISM  OF  A  FRENCH  GIRL  IN  A  BATTLE 
AGAINST  THE  INDIANS — BlENVILLE  INCURS  THE  DISPLEASURE  OF  HIS  GOVERNMENT 
HE  DEMANDS  THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  A  COLLEGE— THAT  DEMAND  IS  REFUSED 

BlENVILLE   IS    RECALLED    TO    FRANCE HE    DEPARTS    NEVER    TO    RETURN HE 

IS  SUCCEEDED  BY  THE  MARQUIS  OF  VAUDREUIL OTHER  FACTS  AND  EVENTS  FROM 

1736  TO  1743. 

THE  bad  success  of  Bienville's  campaign  against  the 
Chickasaws  had,  to  some  degree,  checked  the  progress 
of  the  colony,  and  contributed  to  increase  the  disaffec- 
tion of  the  inhabitants,  who  were  already  very  little 
pleased  with  their  colonial  home,  and  who  became  still 
more  dispirited  by  the  prospect  of  protracted  warfare 
with  implacable  savages.  To  this  feeling  of  insecurity 
must  be  added  the  stagnation  of  commerce,  and  the  pre- 
carious condition  of  agriculture,  of  which  Bienville  said: 
"The  planters  are  disgusted  with  the  cultivation  of 
tobacco  on  account  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  crop,  which 
is  alternately  affected  either  by  the  incessant  rains,  or 
by  the  long  droughts  so  peculiar  to  this  country.  We 
may  produce  from  thirty  to  thirty-five  thousand  pounds 
of  indigo,  if  there  be  no  accident  in  the  way.  The  in- 
habitants are  turning  their  attention  to  this  branch  of 
industry.  As  to  silk,  very  little  is  made,  through  igno- 
rance. "With  regard  to  cotton,  the  production  is  very 
GG 


498  THE  CHICKASAWS  AND  CHOCTAWS. 

limited,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  separating  it 
from  its  seeds,  or  rather  because  the  cultivation  of  in- 
digo is  more  profitable.  As  to  flax  and  hemp,  hardly 
any  is  made.  With  regard  to  tar  and  pitch,  the  col- 
ony produces  about  six  or  seven  thousand  barrels,  but 
it  wants  an  outlet."  Such  was  the  state  of  agriculture 
in  Louisiana  in  1736. 

On  the  4th  of  February,  1737,  the  French  govern- 
ment issued  an  ordinance  which  was  to  take  effect  on 
the  1st  of  July  of  that  year.  The  object  of  it  was  to 
exempt  from  certain  duties,  during  ten  years,  the  pro- 
ductions of  Louisiana  which  should  be  carried  to  Mar- 
tinique, Guadaloupe,  Trinity,  Dominique,  Barbade,  St. 
Lucie,  St.  Vincent,  Grenade,  and  the  other  islands  of 
that  archipelago,  and  the  productions  of  these  islands 
when  transported  directly  to  Louisiana.  This  was  an- 
other measure  of  sound  policy,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted 
that  the  whole  administration  of  the  colony  was  not 
founded  on  a  system  equally  as  praiseworthy. 

During  the  whole  of  the  year  1737,  war  was  kept  up, 
at  the  instigation  of  the  French,  between  the  Choctaws 
and  the  Chickasaws,  without  producing  any  result  of 
importance.  It  consisted  of  marauding  excursions, 
in  which,  however,  the  Choctaws,  by  their  depreda- 
tions, succeeded  in  inflicting  some  partial  injuries  on 
the  Chickasaws,  who  were  too  well  provided  with 
means  of  defense  not  to  set  at  defiance  all  the  rude  and 
incomplete  engines  of  attack  which  could  be  brought 
to  bear  against  them.  In  a  dispatch  of  the  28th  of 
February,  Bienville  had  said :  "  Fortified  as  they  are, 
with  the  help  and  through  the  instructions  of  the  Eng- 
lish, the  Chickasaws  can  not  be  destroyed,  except 
bombards  of  a  strong  caliber  and  miners  are  em- 
ployed against  them.  It  is  necessary  that  we  be  so 
provided.  The  English  have  sent  more  than  two  hun- 


CHARITY  HOSPITAL  IN  NEW  ORLEANS.  499 

dred  men  to  the  Chickasaws,  to  whom  they  afford  every 
kind  of  assistance." 

Nothing  occurred  during  that  year  worth  being  re- 
•  corded,  except  it  be  the  phenomenon  of  the  fall  at 
New  Orleans,  on  Palm  Sunday,  of  hailstones  as  large 
as  the  eggs  of  a  common  hen,  and  the  foundation  of 
an  hospital  by  a  sailor,  named  Jean  Louis,  who,  in  the 
service  of  the  India  Company,  had  acquired  a  small 
capital  of  ten  thousand  livres,  which,  at  his  death,  he 
consecrated  to  the  relief  of  suffering  humanity.  At  one 
of  the  extremities  of  the  city,  a  house  belonging  to  one 
Mme.  Kolly  was  purchased  for  twelve  hundred  livres ; 
the  repairs  went  up  to  two  thousand  five  hundred  livres. 
One  part  of  the  balance  of  the  sum  bequeathed  was  em- 
ployed in  procuring  the  necessary  apparatus  and  furni- 
ture, and  the  other  part  was  kept  in  reserve.  In  1849, 
the  Charity  Hospital  of  New  Orleans,  which  is  the  prin- 
cipal institution  of  the  kind  in  that  city,  accommodates 
in  its  spacious  halls  more  than  one  thousand  patients, 
at  the  annual  expense  of  fifty  thousand  dollars.  What 
contrasts,  will  spring  up  from  the  lapse  of  a  century ! 

As  another  exemplification  of  such  contrasts,  it  may 
not  be  indifferent  to  record  that,  in  1*738,  the  annals  of 
Louisiana  are  marked  by  a  singular  judicial  trial  founded 
on  laws,  customs,  feelings,  and  ideas  which  are  so  for- 
eign to  those  of  our  own  time,  that  there  seems  to  be 
between  them  a  wider  chasm  of  ages  than  there  really 
is.  Thus,  an  individual  named  Labarre,  having  com- 
mitted suicide,  a  curator  was  appointed  to  the  corpse, 
which  was-  indicted,  tried,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to 
be  deprived  of  Christian  burial,  and  to  lie  rotting  and 
bleaching  on  the  face  of  the  earth  .among  the  offals, 
bones,  and  refuse  of  the  butcher's  stall. 

The  French  government  had  always  felt  considerable 
difficulty  in  preventing  desertion  in  the  troops  sent  to 


500  DESERTIONS  AMONG  THE  FRENCH  TROOPS. 

Louisiana.  In  a  dispatch  of  the  18th  of  March,  1738, 
Bienville  said:  "-Many  of  the  Swiss  desert  to  Pensacola, 
where  they  are  protected  openly  by  the  monks  and 
secretly  by  the  governor.  But  as  the  Spaniards  are 
in  want  of  provisions,  I  have  recommended  to  Diron 
d'Artaguette,  at  Mobile,  not  to  supply  them  with  any 
until  they  consent  to  deliver  up  our  deserters." 

In  a  communication  of  the  12th  of  April  following, 
he  returned  to  the  same  subject :  "  Three  other  Swiss," 
he  wrote,  "have  again  deserted  to  Pensacola,  which  is 
in  a  state  of  extreme  famine.  The  governor  of  that 
place  sent  to  me  for  some  provisions.  I  refused  them 
on  account  of  the  protection  he  grants  to  our  deserters. 
Whereupon  he  sent  them  back  to  me.  Every  day, 
there  come  here  Spaniards  whom  hunger  drives  away 
from  Pensacola.  We  have  already  among  us  more  than 
thirty  of  them,  whose  pale  and  squalid  faces  are  fright- 
ful to  look  at,  and  testify  to  the  sufferings  of  these 
wretches.  Such  misery  is  without  a  parallel." 

These  dispatches  describe  a  state  of  things  which  is 
almost  inexplicable.  On  one  side,  we  see  the  Spaniards 
running  away  from  Pensacola  to  New  Orleans,  to  escape 
from  starvation,  and  on  the  other,  the  Swiss  and  French 
soldiers  deserting  from  the  halls  of  abundance  in  New 
Orleans  and  Mobile,  to  throw  themselves  into  the  arms 
of  famine  in  Pensacola.  The  only  natural  conclusion 
that  one  can  come  to  on  this  subject  is,  that  the  French 
soldiers,  blackguards  as  they  are  represented  to  be  by 
Bienville,  were  disposed  to  run  any  risk  rather  than  re- 
main in  Louisiana. 

Among  the  official  communications  of  that  year  to  the 
French  government,  there  is  a  joint  one  from  Bienville 
and  Salmon,  which  bears  on  a  subject  of  much'  interest 
to  this  day.  It  relates  to  the  sand-bars  which  obstruct 
the  several  mouths  of  the  Mississippi.  "  There  are  daily 


REPORT  ON  THE  SAND-BARS  AT  THE  BALIZE.     501 

changes,"  they  said,  "  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  and  the 
Balize  bar.  It  has  been  remarked  that,  when  the  win- 
ter is  short  and  the  north  wind  has  not  prevailed  much, 
these  changes  become  more  perceptible  and  the  water  is 
not  so  deep.  This  may  also  proceed  from  the  existence 
of  two  other  passes,  through  which  water  runs  with 
more  rapidity  than  in  the  one  which  is  called  the 
Balize* 

"Harbor-master  Livaudais  (capitaine  de  port)  used  to 
find,  ten  years  ago,  about  sixteen  feet  water  on  the 
Balize  bar,  but  it  has  since  become  greatly  obstructed. 
Lately,  when  piloting  the  Oroo,  Livaudais  did  not  find 
more  than  eleven  feet  and  a  half  on  the  bar.  On  ac- 
count of  this  diminution  of  the  water,  this  vessel  made 
her  way  up  with  considerable  difficulty,  the  more  so, 
that  she  draws  more  water  than  those  ships  which  pre- 
ceded her.  This  shallowness  of  the  water  over  the  bar 
has  frequently  been  the  cause  of  damages  and  ex- 
penses." 

"To  obviate  this  inconvenience,  the  India  Company 
some  twelve  years  since,  had  caused  to  be  constructed 
iron  harrows,  (herses)  which  were  dragged  over  the 
bar,  to  remove  the  sand  and  mud.  But  this  expedient 
had  its  disadvantages :  it  removed  the  soft  mud,  and 
left  the  sand,  which,  forming  a  solid  and  compact  body, 
would,  in  time,  not  only  have  interfered  with  the  pas- 
sage of  ships,  but  have  prevented  it  altogether.  This 
caused  the  harrows  to  be  abandoned.  As  the  ships  of 
the  company  were  large,  and  could  not  pass  without 
being  lightened,  a  small  vessel  (flute)  was  left  stationed 
on  the  Balize  bar,  to  receive  part  of  the  cargoes,  and 
the  spot  where  this  vessel  happened  to  be  anchored, 
deepened  gradually  to  twenty-five  feet." 

*  The  Balize  is  known  now  under  the  name  of  the  South-East  Pass,  and  is  not 
used  at  all,  as  there  is  hardty  six  feet  water  on  the  bar 


502      REPORT  ON  THE  SAND-BARS  AT  THE  BALIZE. 

"  From  this  fact  the  inference  has  been  drawn,  that,  to 
deepen  entirely  the  Balize,  it  would  be  proper  to  have 
a  vessel  drawing  eighteen  feet,  in  the  hold  of  which 
brick  wells  should  be  constructed.  By  alternately 
pumping  water  into  and  out  of  these  wells,  the  vessel 
would  rise  or  sink  at  will : — and  by  running  her  up  and 
down  over  the  bar,  it  is  evident  that  she  would  cut  a 
channel  through.  It  is  true  this  would  be  expensive, 
but  the  utility  of  the  measure  would  be  incalculable." 

"  Livaudais,  who  is  a  seaman  of  thirty  years'  stand- 
ing, has  long  been  of  great  service  to  the  colony,  in  the 
piloting  of  vessels  over  the  bar,  and  by  his  prudence, 
he  has  frequently  preserved  them  from  accidents.  Af- 
ter having  served  some  years  on  the  privateers  of  St. 
Malo,  he  came  to  the  colony  in  the  employment  of  the 
India  Company.  He  has  deserved  well  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  it  would  be  proper  that  a  commission  of  en- 
sign be  granted  to  him." 

The  Balize  pass,  which,  in  1728,  had  sixteen  feet 
water,  in  1*738,  fourteen  feet  and  a  half,  and  which 
Bienville  represents  as  filling  up  rapidly,  is  known  in 
our  days  as  the  South-East  pass,  and  having  no  more 
than  six  feet  water,  has  long  been  abandoned.  The  ne- 
cessity of  deepening  the  mouths  of  the  Mississippi  was 
actually  felt  by  the  French  government,  when  the  col- 
ony was  in  its  infancy,  and  it  is  really  astonishing,  that 
a  work  of  so  national  an  importance,  which  can  be  ex- 
ecuted at  a  cost  comparatively  insignificant,  when  taken 
in  connection  with  the  results  to  be  obtained,  should  not 
as  yet  have  been  accomplished  by  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  with  the  ample  pecuniary  and  scien- 
tific means  which  it  possesses. 

,  But  in  those  remote  days,  although  such  an  improve- 
ment, by  the  force  of  its  practicability  and  of  its  utility, 
obtruded  itself  upon  the  attention  of  the  French  gov- 


DE  NOAILLES  SENT  OUT  TO  LOUISIANA  WITH  TROOPS.     503 

eminent,  yet  its  execution  would  have  far  exceeded  the 
expenses  which  that  government  was  willing  and  able 
to  bestow  upon  a  colony,  of  which  the  existence  was  so 
precarious.  It  was  feared,  not  without  reason,  that 
England,  favored  by  the  contiguity  of  her  American 
provinces,  would,  ere  long,  make  a  successful  attack 
upon  Louisiana.  The  fact  is,  that  the  English  were 
multiplying  their  intrigues  among  the  Indian  nations, 
to  make  them  rise  upon  the  French,  and  had  succeeded 
to  a  considerable  extent.  The  Illinois,  and  many  other 
western  and  northern  nations,  whose  friendship  had  so 
far  been  secured  by  the  French,  had  become  cold  and 
disaffected,  if  not  entirely  alienated;  and  among  the 
Choctaws,  Red  Shoe,  with  a  considerable  party,  had 
again  allied  himself  to  the  English.  With  such  dangers 
staring  him  in  the  face,  Bienville  had  been  more  press- 
ing than  ever  in  soliciting  additional  forces,  and  was 
at  last  successful.  The  Minister  of  Marine  wrote  to 
him: — "His  majesty  sends  to  M.  de  Bienville,  artillery, 
arms,  ammunition,  provisions,  merchandise,  and  seven 
hundred  men,  the  recruits  included.  His  majesty  also 
sends  bombardiers,  cannoniers,  and  miners,  with  M. 
de  Noailles  d'Aime,  who  has  long  served  as  lieutenant 
of  a  ship  of  the  line,  and  who  is  to  command  the  Swiss 
and  the  detached  marine  troops.  It  is  his  majesty's 
wish,  that,  during  the  expedition,  M.  de  Noailles  should 
have  the  command,  not  only  of  these  troops,  but  also  of 
the  colonial  troops  and  militia  which  are  under  the 
orders  of  M.  de  Bienville,  to  whom  his  majesty  rec- 
ommends, with  regard  to  the  direction  and  employ- 
ment of  his  troops,  to  act  in  concert  with  M.  de 
Noailles,  who  has  the  necessary  talents  and  experience 
to  command." 

"  A  second  expedition  is  authorized,  if  it  be  thought 


504  BIENVILLE'S  FEELINGS  AT  THE 

of  absolute  utility  to  the  colony.     However,  it  must  not 
be  undertaken  without  real  necessity." 

There  certainly  was  no  sound  policy  in  this  minis- 
terial communication,  for  it  must  have  been  easy  to  an- 
ticipate the  feelings  which  it  was  calculated  to  awaken 
in  Bienville's  heart.  It  was  telling  him  in  plain  terms, 
that  he  had  not  the  necessary  talent  and  experience  to 
command,  and  that  another  who  possessed  them,  was 
sent  to  supply  his  deficiencies.  It  is  clear  that  the  suc- 
cess of  the  intended  expedition,  under  another  chief, 
would  have  rendered  more  glaring  Bienville's  failure  in 
his  past  operations  against  the  Chickasawrs.  He  had 
tasted  the  bitterness  of  defeat,  and  when,  after  unre- 
mitting exertions  and  importunities,  he  had  obtained 
the  means  he  wished  for,  to  wipe  off  the  stain  which  ad- 
verse fortune  had  left  on  his  military  reputation,  he  was 
not  to  profit  by  the  boon.  In  the  same  field,  where  he 
had  reaped  nothing  but  disappointment  and  shame, 
another  was  to  come  and  gather  a  rich  harvest  of  glory. 
He,  Bienville,  so  at  least  thought  the  minister,  had  not 
the  necessary  talent  and  experience  to  command,  and  no 
chance  was  left  him,  to  prove  that  the  impression  was 
wrong.  On  the  contrary,  the  success  of  a  rival  would 
be  a  confirmation  of  the  ministerial  judgment.  No 
doubt  that  Bienville  felt,  to  the  very  core  of  his  soul, 
the  indignity  of  his  new  position,  and  when  it  is  recol- 
lected, that  he  was  the  founder  of  the  colony,  that  he 
had  been  forty  years  connected  with  it,  that  he  had  in 
it  numerous  relations,  kinsmen,  friends,  and  adherents, 
who  looked  up  to  him  with  clannish  pride,  who  resent- 
ed his  injuries  as  their  own,  and  who  took  the  liveliest 
interest  in  his  reputation  and  affairs,  it  does  not  require 
a  deep  insight  into  human  nature,  to  foresee  that  the 
projected  expedition  was  doomed  to  defeat.  It  is  but 
seldom  that  half-way  measures  do  not  prove  abortive, 


APPOINTMENT  OF  DE  NOAILLES.  505 

and  do  not  fall  far  wide  of  the  mark  they  were  intend- 
ed for.  Bienville  had,  or  had  not  the  qualifications  to 
"be  trusted  with  command  in  war.  If  he  had  them,  it 
was  cruel  and  unjust,  after  the  mortifications  he  had  ex- 
perienced in  his  struggles  against  the  Chickasaws, 
through  a  deficiency  of  adequate  means,  as  he  alledged, 
not  to  aiford  him  the  opportunity  of  retrieving  his  past 
reverses,  and  to  put  all  the  required  implements  which 
he  had  demanded  at  the  disposal  of  another.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  Bienville,  if  he  was  not  qualified  to  act  as  the 
leader  of  an  army,  ought  to  have  been  superseded  at 
once.  But  to  leave  him  in  his  post,  with  the  mocking 
appearance  of  command  and  power,  to  trample  on  his 
pride,  his  sense  of  dignity,  and  his  self-love,  by  putting 
him  under  a  sort  of  tutor,  was  a  dangerous  experiment 
to  be  made.  It  was  gratuitously  and  imprudently 
tempting  the  demon  that  lurks  within  the  deep  and 
fathomless  caves  of  the  human  heart.  Future  events 
Lave  demonstrated  that  the  French  government  had 
not  pursued  the  course  of  wisdom  on  that  occasion. 

The  greater  part  of  the  year  1*739  was  devoted  to 
making  preparations  for  that  campaign,  by  which  the 
destruction  of  the  Chickasaws  was  to  be  accomplished. 
In  the  month  of  March,  Bienville  sent  his  nephew,  the 
Chevalier  de  Noyan,  among  the  Choctaws,  to  conciliate 
them  and  obtain  their  support.  Noyan  succeeded  in 
his  mission,  and  out  of  the  forty-two  villages  inhabited 
by  the  nation  of  the  Choctaws,  he  gained  thirty-two. 
The  remaining  ten,  who  were  under  the  influence  of 
Eed  Shoe,  declared  themselves  in  favor  of  the  English. 
In  some  of  the  thirty-two  villages  which  had  pronounced 
themselves  in  favor  of  the  French,  English  traders  were 
plundered,  wounded,  and  put  to  flight ;  and  parties  of 
warriors  were  formed,  who  departed  to  war  against  the 


506  OPENING  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN 

Chickasaws.     They  brought  back  their  usual  trophies, 
which  consisted  of"  scalps. 

Proud  of  having  prevented  the  ten  villages  from  join- 
ing in  the  alliance  which  the  majority  of  them  had 
formed  with  the  French,  Red  Shoe,  at  the  head  of 
ninety-eight  warriors,  had  gone  to  the  English  settle- 
ments in  Georgia,  under  the  hope  of  being  handsomely 
rewarded.  It  appears  that  he  was  disappointed,  for 
on  his  return,  he  sided  with  the  French,  who,  no  doubt, 
offered  him  better  terms,  and  on  the  18th  of  August 
he  plundered  three  English  warehouses,  and  departed 
on  a  war  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws.  Thus,  the 
whole  Choctaw  nation  had  become  favorable  to  the 
French,  and  Bienville  found  himself  placed  under  the 
most  auspicious  circumstances  to  execute  his  plans  of 
attack  against  the  Chickasaws.  He  had  given  up  the 
idea  of  following  the  old  route  through  the  lakes  and 
up  the  Tombecbee,  although  it  was  the  shortest  and 
the  easiest,  and  he  took  the  resolution  to  ascend  the 
Mississippi  up  to  that  part  of  its  bank  which  was  the 
nearest  to  the  Chickasaw  villages.  From  that  spot  to 
the  Indian  villages,  the  distance  was  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  miles.  His  reason  for  taking  this  other  and 
longer  route,  was  his  thinking  that  it  afforded  him  fa- 
cilities to  procure  a  more  considerable  quantity  of  pro- 
visions, and  to  transport  his  artillery  with  less  trouble. 
Since  1737,  the  engineer  Deverges,  in  compliance  with 
Bienville's  instructions,  had  studied  the  ground  and  re- 
ported that  it  offered  an  easy  access  to  the  Indian  vil- 
lages. Acting  under  this  impression,  Bienville  had 
fixed  for  the  general  rendezvous  of  his  combined  forces, 
the  mouth  of  the  river  Margot,  not  far  from  the  present 
city  of  Memphis. 

Since  the  arrival  of  Noailles  with  seven  hundred  men, 
Bienville  was  abundantly  supplied  with  troops,  provis- 


AGAINST  THE  CHICKASAWS.  507 

ions,  ammunition,  bombards,  and  guns,  and  every  thing 
looked  fair  at  the  opening  of  the  campaign.  In  the 
month  of  August,  De  Noyan,  who  commanded  the  van- 
guard, reached  the  general  rendezvous  at  the  mouth  of 
the  river  Margot.  A  short  time  after,  De  la  Buisson- 
niere,  who  had  succeeded  the  unfortunate  D'Artaguette 
in  the  command  of  the  Illinois  district,  arrived  with  a 
detachment  of  the  garrison  of  Fort  Chartres,  with  a 
body  of  the  Illinois  militia,  and  about  two  hundred  In- 
dians. A  week  had  hardly  elapsed,  when  Celeron  and 
St.  Laurent  made  their  appearance.  These  intrepid 
officers  were  from  the  far  distant  Canadian  provinces, 
and  had  come  with  a  company  of  Quebec  and  Montreal 
cadets,  and  a  considerable  number  of  the  northern  In- 
dians. This  company  of  cadets  was  composed  of  select 
youths,  all  of  gentle  birth,  and  the  sons  of  officers. 
After  a  short  apprenticeship,  they  were  entitled  to  be, 
in  their  turn,  commissioned  as  officers.  While  they 
were  waiting  for  Bienville,  the  troops  constructed  a 
fort  where  they  were  encamped,  and  called  it  Fort  As- 
sumption, from  the  circumstance  of  its  having  been 
completed  on  the  day  when  the  Catholic  church  cele- 
brates the  feast  of  the  Assumption. 

The  rest  of  the  troops,  under  the  command  of  Bien- 
ville, reached  the  general  rendezvous  only  on  the  12th 
of  November.  Inexplicable  delays  had,  it  seems,  pre- 
vented the  junction  of  all  the  forces  of  the  expedition 
from  taking  place  sooner.  In  the  mean  time,  that  part 
of  the  army  which  had  been  lingering  on  the  banks  of 
the  river  Margot  since  the  month  of  August,  had  been 
afflicted  with  disease,  and  great  mortality  had  ensued. 
When  the  whole  army  was  reviewed  on  the  12th  of 
November,  it  was  found  to  be  composed  of  about 
twelve  hundred  white  men  and  two  thousand  four  hun- 
dred Indians.  Bienville  had  left  New  Orleans  on  the 


508  RENDEZVOUS  OF  THE  FRENCH  TROOPS. 

12th  of  September,  and  in  one  of  his  dispatches 
boasts  of  the  rapidity  with  which  he  ascended  the 
river,  considering  that  he  was  only  two  months  on  the 
way. 

When  all  the  forces  of  the  expedition  were  brought 
together,  it  was  discovered  that  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  false  reckoning  in  the  quantity  of  provisions  they 
expected  to  have,  and  Bienville  informed  the  French 
government  that  more  than  half  of  the  cattle,  horses, 
and  provisions  which  had  been  gathered  at  Fort  St. 
Francis  in  Arkansas,  had  been  lost  in  crossing  over  the 
marshes  and  low  countries  they  had  to  go  through  on 
the  way  to  the  place  of  rendezvous  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  Margot.  Only  eighty  oxen  and  thirty-five  horses 
reached  the  French  camp,  but  in  such  a  condition  that 
they  were  not  fit  for  any  thing.  Two  hundred  and 
fifty  horses,  with  one  hundred  head  of  cattle,  which 
were  expected  from  JSTatchitoches,  had  also  perished. 

The  scarcity  of  provisions  had  increased  the  necessity 
of  acting  without  loss  of  time.  But  Bienville  did  not 
think  proper  to  take  the  road  discovered  since  1737  by 
the  engineer  Deverges,  because  he  said  it  was  made  im- 
practicable by  the  overflowing  of  small  rivers.  A  man 
by  the  name  of  Saucier,  who,  in  the  communications  of 
the  time,  is  called  a  drawer  of  plans  (or  dessinateur), 
had  also  found  a  road,  but  it  was  rejected  by  Bienville. 
The  engineer  Deverges  again  went  to  work  under  the 
direction  of  Noyan,  and  after  two  months  of  explora- 
tion, discovered,  in  January,  a'  practicable  road  on  the 
high  lands  (sur  les  hauteurs).  Unfortunately,  this 
road  came  to  light  precisely  at  the  moment  when  the 
provisions  began  to  be  exhausted.  Even  then,  Bien- 
ville and  Noailles  appear  to  have  remained  in  a  state  of 
hesitation  until  the  month  of  February,  1740,  when  a 
council  of  war,  composed  of  Bienville,  Noailles,  Bellagues, 


THEIR  RETREAT— PEACE  WITH  THE  CHICKASAWS.        509 

Du  Teillay,  De  Longueil,  De  Noyan,  De  Gauvrit,  D'Hau- 
terive,  D'Aubigny,  and  Pepinet,  decided  that,  consider- 
ing all  the  untoward  circumstances  the  French  had  to 
contend  with,  it  was  impossible  to  march  to  the  Chick- 
asaw  villages,  without  hazarding  the  reputation  of  the 
king's  arms*  and  orders  were  given  to  prepare  for  a 
retreat.  This  was  the  greatest  armament  which  the 
country  had  yet  seen,  and  all  this  bustle,  show,  and 
pomp  of  war  had  ended  in  smoke.  The  mountain  had 
been  delivered  of  a  mouse ;  the  French  had  gathered 
from  the  four  quarters  of  the  horizon  merely  to  disperse. 
What  is  remarkable  is,  that  Celeron,  either  author- 
ized by  Bienville,  or  assuming  the  undertaking  on  his 
own  responsibility,  departed  from  Fort  Assumption,  on 
the  15th  of  March,  after  the  bulk  of  the  army  had 
moved  off  down  the  Mississippi,  and  marched  upon  the 
Chickasaw  villages,  with  his  company  of  cadets,  about 
one  hundred  Frenchmen  and  four  or  five  hundred  In- 
dians. When  Celeron  appeared  in  sight  of  the  villages 
with  his  small  forces,  the  Chickasaws,  either  believing 
that  it  was  only  the  head  of  the  French  army  which 
was  coming  behind,  or  frightened  at  the  vastness  of  the 
preparations  which  had  been  made  against  them,  and  at 
the  unalterable  determination  which  the  French  seemed 
to  have  taken  to  wage  a  war  of  extermination  against 
their  nation,  presented  themselves  before  the  French 
officer,  as  suppliants  for  peace,  which  they  solicited  in 
the  humblest  terms.  Celeron  accepted  their  proposi- 
tions, and  sent  some  of  their  chiefs  after  Bienville,  whom 
they  overtook  on  his  way  to  New  Orleans.  The  French 
governor  made  with  them  a  treaty,  by  which  they  prom- 
ised to  deliver  up  the  Natchez  they  had  in  their  posses- 
sion, and  to  exterminate  the  rest  of  that  unfortunate 
race.  However,  Bienville  declared  to  them  that  the 

*  Sans  compromettre  les  armes  du  Roi. 


510  BIENVILLE'S  REPORT  ON  THE 

treaty  of  peace  did  not  include  the  Choctaws,  who 
would  continue  to  make  war  upon  them,  and  to  receive 
from  the  French  the  customary  price  for  every  Chick- 
asaw  scalp  they  would  raise,  until  they,  the  Chickasaws, 
should  grant  to  the  Choctaws  the  satisfaction  which 
these  allies  of  the  French  demanded  for  certain  injuries 
they  pretended  to  have  received.  In  consequence  of 
this  treaty,  the  Chickasaws  delivered  up  to  Celeron 
a  few  Natchez,  whom  he  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
French  of  Louisiana,  and  he  returned  to  Canada  with 
his  forces,  after  having  razed  to  the  ground  Fort  As- 
sumption, which  had  risen  like  a  mushroom  growth, 
and  which  was  thus  destined  to  have  but  an  ephemeral 
duration. 

Celeron  is  the  only  officer  who  gained  any  reputa- 
tion in  that  expedition,  which  proved  so  disgraceful 
to  the  French,  although  heralded  with  so  much  pomp, 
and  although  replete  with  so  ample  means  of  success. 
Bienville  himself  felt  that  the  result  of  that  campaign 
would  redound  very  little  to  his  credit;  and  in  a  dis- 
patch of  the  10th  of  May,  1740,  he  gives  for  it  but  a 
very  lame  and  impotent  justification.  It  is  evident  that 
he  felt  embarrassed  and  ill  at  ease  under  the  weight  of 
the  circumstances  which  militated  against  him.  His 
pen  labored  for  excuses,  and  it  is  apparent  that  they 
sprung  up  meager  and  thin  from  a  barren  field.  Thus 
he  wrote  to  the  minister  of  the  colonial  department : — 

"  Much  to  my  sorrow,  I  feel  that  your  excellency  will 
not  be  satisfied  with  the  result  of  an  enterprise  which 
has  cost  so  many  expenses  to  the  king ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  I  hope  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  observe,  that  I 
had  not  failed  to  take  every  one  of  those  necessary  pre- 
cautions, which  ought  to  have  rendered  that  campaign 
as  glorious  as  possible  for  his  majesty. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  EXPEDITION.  511 

"  At  all  events,  if  we  did  not  come  out  of  it  with  all 
the  success  which  we  had  a  right  to  expect,  the  glory 
of  the  king's  arms  has  not  been  tarnished.  All  the  In- 
dian tribes  were  struck  with  the  grandeur  of  our  prep- 
arations, and  have  felt  the  superiority  of  our  forces. 
They  have  stood  eye-witnesses  to  the  fear  with  which 
we  impressed  our  enemies,  and  which  induced  them  to 
sue  for  peace.  I  think  that  I  can  even  assert  that,  con- 
sidering the  tranquillity  which  the  colony  now  enjoys, 
our  affairs  are  in  a  better  position  than  if  we  had 
marched  to  the  Chickasaws,  from  whose  own  confession 
we  know  that  they  were  observing  our  movements, 
with  the  intention  of  abandoning  their  villages,  as  soon 
as  they  should  have  been  made  aware  of  our  march 
upon  them 

"  After  all,  those  Chickasaws  can  not,  when  left  to 
their  own  resources,  be  a  cause  of  much  uneasiness  to 
the  colony.  We  know  from  their  own  mouths  that 
they  hardly  number  three  hundred  able  bodied  men, 
and  that  their  most  famous  warriors  perished  in  their 
late  wars." 

To  have  mustered,  at  an  enormous  expense,  an.  army 
of  three  thousand  six  hundred  men,  well  provided  with 
artillery,  bombards,  and  arms  of  every  sort,  and  to  have 
come  within  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  of  the 
stronghold  of  the  enemy,  without  striking  a  blow ;  to 
have  lost  five  hundred  men  by  disease  out  of  the  twelve 
hundred  white  troops,  and  after  the  beginning  of  a  re- 
treat, to  have  patched  up,  as  it  were  by  accident,  a  sort 
of  sham  and  hollow  peace,  for  the  observation  of  which 
there  was  no  warranty  beyond  the  pledged  word  of 
fickle  savages,  these  were  circumstances  which  gave  the 
most  positive  denial  to  Bienville's  assertion,  that,  "  if 
the  French  did  not  come  out  of  that  campaign  with  all 
the  success  which  they  had  a  right  to  expect,  tlie  glory  of 


512  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  EXCUSES  OF  BIENVILLE. 

the  king's  arms  had  not  been  tarnished.'1''  Nor  is  it  pos- 
sible to  agree  with  Bienville,  when  he  says  that  the  af- 
fairs of  the  colony  were  in  a  better  condition  than  if 
he  had  marched  up  to  the  villages  of  the  enemy,  because 
in  that  case  the  intention  of  the  Indians  was  to  abandon 
those  villages.  But  even  admitting  that  supposition  to 
be  correct,  would  not  the  destruction  of  such  well-forti- 
fied strongholds  as  they  were  represented  to  be,  have 
been  an  immense  advantage  to  the  French  ?  And  if 
the  conviction  that  the  Indians  would  have  retired  be- 
fore such  overwhelming  odds  be  a  good  reason  for  not 
continuing  the  expedition,  it  must  have  been  an  equally 
strong  one  for  not  undertaking  it.  Nor  is  it  possible, 
again,  to  agree  with  him  when  he  declares  that  the 
Indian  nations  were  struck  with  the  grandeur  of  his 
preparations,  that  they  were  made  aware  of  the  superi- 
ority of  the  French  forces,  and  that  they  had  witnessed 
the  fear  which  such  a  display  struck  into  the  bosoms  of 
the  Chickasaws,  who  were  forced  to  sue  for  peace.  It 
seems,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  insignificance  of  the  result 
obtained,  when  compared  with  the  vast  scale  on  which 
the  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws  was  conducted, 
must  have  been  a  practical  demonstration,  particularly 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Choctaws,  who  numbered  fifteen 
thousand  warriors,  of  the  utter  incapacity  of  the  French 
to  cope  with  any  of  the  powerful  Indian  tribes. 

A  large  share,  it  is  true,  must  be  allowed  for  acci- 
dents in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  but  those  of  which 
Bienville  speaks  in  his  dispatches,  such  as  the  overflow 
of  rivers,  and  the  loss  of  cattle  and  horses,  were  of  a  na- 
ture to  have  been  foreseen  to  a  certain  degree.  There 
certainly  was  a  great  want  of  concert  of  operations  in 
the  movements  of  the  army.  How  came  the  head  of  it 
to  arrive  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Margot  in  August, 
and  to  be  obliged  to  wait  until  the  12th  of  November? 


FOR  THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  EXPEDITION.  513 

Then,  from  the  12th  of  November  to  the  month  of 
February,  how  came  twelve  hundred  white  men  and 
two  thousand  four  hundred  Indians  to  remain  in  a  state 
of  torpor  ?  Were  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
which  separated  the  French  camp  from  the  Chickasaw 
villages  so  impracticable  ?  Had  not  D'Artaguette  found 
these  villages  of  easy  access,  in  IT 3 6,  through  the  same 
country?  If  the  road  discovered  in  1737  by  the  engi- 
neer Deverges  had  become  out  of  the  question  on  ac- 
count of  the  overflowing  of  small  rivers,  as  stated  by 
Bienville,  what  objection  was  there  to  Saucier's  ?  And 
when,  in  January,  a  third  road  was  found  out  on  the 
high  lands,  which  road  was  successfully  taken  by  Cele- 
ron, on  the  15th  of  March,  how  came  the  whole  army 
to  remain  motionless  through  the  whole  of  February  ? 
What  a  series  of  inexplicable  delays  from  August,  1739, 
to  March,  1740 !  Bienville  had  lately  been  very  press- 
ing in  demanding  additional  forces,  and  had  always  rep- 
resented the  ferocious  Chickasaws  as  so  formidable,  that 
their  very  existence  was  incompatible  with  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  colony.  How  came  he  so  suddenly  to 
change  his  tone,  and  to  say,  that  those  Chickasaws  were 
not,  after  all,  a  source  of  much  uneasiness  to  the  colony  ? 
On  a  cairn  and  dispassionate  review  of  all  the  circum- 
stances, it  is  hardly  possible  not  to  come  to  the  con- 
clusion, that  there  was  something  rotten  at  the  bottom 
of  that  expedition. 

The  solution  of  the  enigma  must,  I  am  afraid,  be 
looked  for  in  the  impolitic  measure  taken  by  the  French 
government  to  send  Noailles  to  assume  the  command 
of  the  intended  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws,  and 
to  retain  Bienville  in  a  subordinate  capacity  under  him. 
There  were  no  doubt  seeds  of  much  mischief  in  these 
words  of  the  French  minister  to  Bienville :  "  His  ma- 
jesty sends  M.  de  Noailles  who  has  the  necessary  talents 
HH 


514:  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  GREAT  HURRICANE 

and  experience  to  command."  These  suppositions,  found- 
ed on  the  knowledge  of  human  nature,  are  fully  con- 
firmed by  a  report  of  the  engineer  Deverges,  'who  says, 
that,  although  his  determination  is  carefully  to  abstain 
from  accusing  any  body,  yet  he  must  confess  that  the 
failure  of  the  expedition  was  owing  to  jealousies,  bick- 
erings, and  conflicts  of  power.  This  was,  no  doubt, 
putting  the  finger  on  the  sore.  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise, when  the  greater  the  resources  granted  to  a  pre- 
ferred rival,  the  greater  became  Bienville's  interest  that 
these  resources  should  crumble  into  dust  in  the  hands 
of  their  possessor,  in  order  to  justify  the  sterility  of  the 
expedition  which  he,  Bienville,  had  undertaken  with 
such  inferior  means  ?  Patriotism  and  private  interest 
ought  seldom  to  be  put  in  opposite  scales,  or  a  hun- 
dred to  one  that  patriotism  will  kick  the  beam. 

It  appears  from  a  statement  of  the  15th  of  June, 
1740,  signed  by  Bienville  and  commissary  Salmon,  that 
from  the  first  of  January,  1737,  to  the  31st  of  May, 
1740,  the  expenses  of  the  Chickasaw  war  amounted  to 
1,088,383  livres,  and  that  for  the  year  1740,  the  budget 
of  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  colony  was  put  down 
at  310,000  livres. 

On  the  llth  of  September,  1740,  there  was  a  dread- 
ful hurricane,  which  produced  very  extensive  disasters 
in  the  colony,  of  which  Beau  champ,  the  commander  of 
Mobile,  gives  a  description  in  a  dispatch  of  the  25th  of 
February,  1741. 

"This  hurricane,"  says  he,  "was  so  violent,  that, 
here,  it  blew  down  several  houses,  and  among  others, 
the  edifice  which  M.  Bizoton  had  constructed,  not  only 
as  a  store,  but  as  a  house  of  refuge  for  sailors.  Unfor- 
tunately, it  contained  all  the  flour  and  other  provisions 
destined  for  the  subsistence  of  the  garrison.  I  was 


OF  THE  11TH  OF  SEPTEMBER,  1740.  £15 

obliged  to  send  the  garrison  a  fishing  along  the  coast 
for  the  barrels  which  had  been  blown  into  the  water, 
and  part  of  which  was  staved  off.  Without  this  barrel 
fishing,  we  should  have  run  the  risk  of  dying  of  hunger, 
as  our  resources  were  limited  to  six  or  eight  barrels  of 
flour,  which  were  in  the  fort. 

"The  wind  was  so  furious  that,  if  it  had  continued 
for  forty-eight  hours,  as  all  hurricanes  generally  do,  we 
should  have  been  inundated.  Fortunately,  it  blew 
only  during  twelve  hours,  but  with  such  force,  that 
half  of  Dauphine  Island  was  carried  away,  and  more 
than  three  hundred  head  of  cattle  were  drowned  on  the 
island.  We  have  lost  a  greater  number  of  them  on 
this  coast,  and  at  Pascagoulas.  This  loss  is  severely 
felt  by  the  poor  population  of  this  section  of  the 
country. 

"The  effect  produced  by  the  force  of  the  wind  is 
almost  incredible.  There  was  lying  before  the  guard- 
house of  Dauphine  Island,  a  cannon  of  four  pound  cal- 
iber. The  wind  transported  it  eighteen  feet  from 
where  it  was.  This  fact  is  sworn  to  by  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  island. 

"  This  hurricane,  which  lasted  twelve  hours,  began 
in  the  night  of  the  llth  of  September,  and  ceased  on 
that  day  at  noon.     But  although  its  duration  was  not 
long,  it  caused  much  damage.       ..... 

.  To  cap  the  climax  of  our  mis- 
fortunes, there  came  another  hurricane  on  the  18th  of 
September,  which  destroyed  the  rest  of  our  resources. 
This  wind,  which  blew  from  N.  N.  E.  and  which  was 
accompanied  by  heavy  rains,  caused  an  overflowing  of 
all  the  rivers,  by  which  were  laid  waste  all  the  planta- 
tions of  the  Indians  from  Carolina  to  this  place.  The 
first  hurricane  was  from  E.  S.  E. : — luckily  these  hurri- 
canes did  not  pass  over  New  Orleans  and  the  adjacent 


516  DISTRESSED  STATE  OF  THE  COLONY. 

country,  where  the  crops  have  turned  out  to  be  pretty 
abundant.  Otherwise,  the  whole  colony  would  have 
been  in  a  frightful  state  from  the  scarcity  of  provisions, 
and  it  would  have  been  utterly  impossible  to  make 
presents  to  the  Choctaws,  in  whose  debt,  on  this  score, 
we  have  been  for  two  years." 

On  the  7th  of  March,  Loubois  wrote  to  the  French 
government  a  communication,  which  more  than  con- 
firmed Beauchamp's  description  of  the  state  of  the  col- 
ony. According  to  the  statement  of  Loubois,  Louisiana 
was  reduced  to  the  lowest  degree  of  misery.  Among 
the  other  effects  which  he  relates  as  the  result  of  the  hur- 
ricane of  the  llth,  and  that  of  the  18th,  he  says,  that  the 
battery  at  the  Balize  was  so  much  damaged  that,  if  at- 
tacked, it  could  be  carried  by  four  gun-boats.  There 
was  such  a  scarcity  of  every  thing,  that  a  cask  of  com- 
mon wine  was  sold  for  500  livres,  of  Spanish  money, 
and  800  livres,  in  the  currency  of  the  colony,  and  the 
rest  in  proportion.  As  to  flour,  it  could  be  commanded 
by  no  price,  as  there  was  none  to  be  had.  On  the  18th 
of  July,  the  same  Loubois  wrote :  "  There  are  many 
families  reduced  to  such  a  state  of  destitution,  that 
fathers,  when  they  rise  in  the  morning,  do  not  know 
where  they  will  get  the  food  required  by  their  chil- 
dren." Louisiana,  now  reposing  so  luxuriously  in  the 
lap  of  plenty,  can  hardly,  when  looking  at  her  plump 
cheeks  in  the  mirror  presented  to  her  by  the  year  1849, 
be  persuaded  to  recognize  herself  in  the  picture  drawn 
of  her  in  the  year  1741. 

To  increase  the  somber  hue  of  the  horizon  which  sur- 
rounded the  colony,  the  Natchez  and  Chickasaws  had 
recommenced  their  depredations,  and  the  Pointe  Coupee 
settlement  had  been  the  first  to  suffer  from  their  excur- 
sions. These  same  Indians,  to  the  number  of  one  hun- 
dred and  forty,  attacked  in  the  Wabash  a  party  of 


HEROISM  OF  A  YOUNG  GIRL.  51? 

twenty-four  French  trappers  and  traders,  among  whom 
were  a  woman  and  a  young  girl.  Unluckily,  the  in- 
clemency of  the  weather  had  driven  the  French  to  take 
shelter  on  the  banks  of  a  small  bayou,  and  the  Indians, 
who  had  been  following  them  for  some  time,  took  hold 
of  hills  which  commanded  the  bayou,  and  on  which 
they  were  protected  by  thick  woods.  From  this  van- 
tage-ground, they  poured  their  fire  on  the  French. 
The  battle  lasted  six  hours,  during  which  time  the 
young  girl  displayed  the  greatest  heroism.  She  re- 
peatedly exposed  her  life,  by  coming  out  of  her  place 
of  concealment,  to  cut  the  powder  horns  of  those  of  her 
companions  who  dropped  dead,  and  to  distribute  the 
much  wanted  ammunition  among  the  surviving.  At 
last,  a  bullet  put  an  end  to  her  existence,  and  the  other 
female  was  also  killed.  Of  the  twenty-four  trappers,  or 
traders,  sixteen  perished.  The  remaining  eight,  seeing 
that  they  could  no  longer  maintain  their  ground,  made 
a  desperate  charge  upon  their  foes,  and  forced  their  way 
through.  Three  of  them  were  wounded,  but  they  all 
escaped.  Writing  on  these  events,  Loubois  said,  "I 
am  mortified,  for  the  sake  of  the  tranquillity  of  this  un- 
happy country,  to  see  that  I  was  not  mistaken  in  the 
judgment  which  I  had  passed  on  our  late  treaty  of 
peace  with  the  Chickasaws." 

Thus,  it  is  seen,  that  the  French  officers  knew  how  to 
reduce  to  its  true  value  the  nugatory  peace  which  Bien- 
ville  had  contracted  with  the  Chickasaws.  With  re- 
gard to  the  French,  it  was  purely  nominal ;  and  the 
Choctaws,  so  far,  had  not  obtained  the  slightest  redress 
for  those  injuries  of  which  they  complained,  and  for 
which  Bienville  had  demanded  satisfaction  of  the  Chick- 
asaws. These  two  nations  were  therefore  still  in  arms 
against  each  other,  and  had  several  encounters,  in  which 
the  Choctaws  had  the  advantage.  On  that  occasion, 


518         BIENVILLE  LOSES  FAVOR  WITH  THE  GOVERNMENT, 

Bienville  informed  his  government,  that  lie  saw  with 
pleasure  that  the  Choctaws  were  growing  more  warlike, 
and  that  they  were  no  longer  afraid  of  meeting  their 
old  enemies  in  battle. 

The  establishments  at  the  Balize  having  been  almost 
destroyed  by  the  hurricanes  of  the  llth  and  18th  of 
September,  1740,  it  became  necessary  to  renew  or  re- 
store them.  The  engineer  Deverges  estimated  the 
probable  cost  at  454,974  livres,  including  only  the  most 
important  part  of  the  works.  Bienville  informed  the 
French  government,  that  he  had  contracted  for  what  it 
was  most  urgent  to  have  done,  with  Dubreuil,  who  was 
the  only  man  in  the  colony  sufficiently  wealthy,  to  take 
charge  of  such  an  undertaking,  and  to  whom  it  had 
been  adjudicated  for  the  sum  of  297,382  livres  10 
centimes. 

On  the  31st  of  October,  the  council  of  state,  in 
France,  prorogued  to  ten  years  the  ordinance  of  the 
30th  of  September,  1732,  which  exempted  from  duties 
the  imports  into,  and  the  exports  from  Louisiana.  It 
was  a  laudable  perseverance  in  the  right  path. 

The  budget  of  the  current  expenses  of  Louisiana  in 
1741,  amounted  to  319,411  livres.  The  salary  of  the 
governor  was  12,000  livres;  his  secretary,  1200  livres; 
the  royal  commissary,  8,000  livres. 

The  French  government,  according  to  Bienville's  ex- 
pectations, had  learned  with  much  displeasure  the  result 
of  the  last  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws,  and  the 
minister  of  the  colonial  department  addressed  Bienville 
on  the  subject  with  some  severity.  From  that  time,  all 
the  official  communications  which  he  received  were 
harsh  in  their  tone,  and  showed  how  much  ground  he 
,had  lost  at  court.  In  a  dispatch  of  the  19th  of  Janu- 
ary, 1742,  the  minister,  after  having  expressed  his  dis- 
content and  disapprobation  with  regard  to  several  acts 


AND  IS  RECALLED.  519 

of  Bienville's  administration,  says : — "  Moreover,  it  has 
come  to  my  knowledge,  that  you  have  permitted  two 
families,  established  in  the  colony,  to  emigrate  to  St. 
Domingo,  by  the  ship  Triton,  and  not  only  have  you 
not  laid  before  me  the  reasons  which  may  have  deter- 
mined you  to  grant  this  permission,  but  you  have  not 
even  informed  me  of  their  departure.  Yet,  you  must 
be  aware  that,  independently  of  the  prejudice  caused  to 
the  colony  by  the  desertion  of  its  inhabitants,  such  an 
example  can  not  but  be  a  source  of  discouragement  for 
those  who  remain  in  it.  Hence,  his^majesty  forbids  you 
to  allow  any  one  to  leave  the  colony,  without  orders  sent 
to  you  on  this  subject.  You  will  be  pleased  to  act  in 
conformity  with  this  instruction.  You  will  also  com- 
municate to  me  the  reasons  for  which  ^ou  allowed  these 
two  families  to  go  to  St.  Domingo.  The  suggestion 
which  you  have  made,  that  permission  be  granted  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Martinique  to  emigrate  at  will  to 
Louisiana  with  their  goods  and  negroes,  deserves  to  be 
examined,  and  I  will  see  what  is  to  be  done  in  the 
matter." 

From  the  continuance  of  the  tone  in  which  he  was 
addressed,  Bienville  saw  that  he  could  not  weather  the 
disfavor  into  which  he  had  fallen,  and  begged  to  be  re- 
called : — which  application  was  readily  acquiesced  in. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  Choctaws  were  continuing  to 
wage  war  against  the  Chickasaws  with  great  spirit,  ac- 
tivity, and  success.  The  race  of  the  Chickasaws,  like 
that  of  the  Natchez,  was  threatened  with  destruction. 
Their  ancient  power  and  renown  were  ebbing  fast  away. 
They  had  lately  lost  more  than  fifty  warriors,  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  horses,  and  a  large  number  of  their  cat- 
tle. The  few  surviving  Natchez  who  had  taken  refuge 
with  the  Chickasaws,  finding  they  were  an  incumbrance 
to  their  generous  protectors,  who  were  so  sorely  pressed, 


520  BIENVILLE  WRITES  TO  THE  MINISTER 

had  retired  among  the  Cherokees.  So  fierce,  indeed, 
had  become  the  struggle  between  the  Choctaws  and 
Chickasaws,  that  it  promised  a  speedy  termination, — the 
former,  who  were  much  more  powerful,  having  sworn 
that  they  would  drive  away  the  latter  from  their  old 
hereditary  possessions.  The  Choctaw  chief,  Red  Shoe, 
acquired  great  distinction  in  this  war,  and  became  the 
scourge  and  terror  of  the  Chickasaws. 

The  preoccupations,  vicissitudes,  and  dangers  of  war 
had  much  contributed  to  the  neglect  of  agriculture  in 
the  colony.  But  a  fragrant  shrub,  called  the  Anemiche 
by  the  Indians,  had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  gov- 
ernment. It  is  the  wax-tree,  or  candle-berry  (myrica 
cerifera),  of  which  the  wax  is  used  for  making  candles. 
These  candles  were,  at  that  time,  in  general  use  among 
the  inhabitants  of  Louisiana.  The  French  government 
thought  that  they  could  make  of  the  wax  an  object  of 
trade,  and  required  information  on  the  subject,  which 
was  given  in  very  interesting  reports  made  by  Bien- 
ville,  Salmon,  the  botanist  Alexandre,  and  others.  It 
resulted  from  the  investigations  at  that  time,  that  the 
cultivation  of  this  shrub  might  be  productive,  and  that, 
at  an  average,  eight  pounds  of  berries  produced  one 
pound  of  wax. 

On  the  26th  of  March,  1742,  Bienville  wrote  to  the 
minister  with  regard  to  his  recall : — "  If  success  had  al- 
ways corresponded  with  my  application  to  the  affairs 
of  the  government,  and  administration  of  this  colony, 
and  with  my  zeal  for  the  service  of  the  king,  I  should 
have  rejoiced  in  consecrating  the  rest  of  my  days  to 
Buch  objects ;  but  through  a  sort  of  fatality  which,  for 
some  time  past,  has  obstinately  thwarted  my  best  con- 
certed plans,  I  have  frequently  lost  the  fruit  of  my 
labors,  and  perhaps  some  ground  in  your  excellency's 
confidence.  Therefore  have  I  come  to  the  conclusion. 


OX  THE  SUBJECT  OF  HIS  RECALL. 


521 


that  it  is  no  longer  necessary  for  rne  to  struggle  against 
my  adverse  fortune.  I  hope  that  better  luck  may  at- 
tend my  successor.  During  the  balance  of  my  stay 
here,  I  will  give  all  my  attention  to  smooth  the  difficul- 
ties attached  to  the  office  which  I  shall  deliver  up  to 
him,  and  it  is  to  me  a  subject  of  self-gratulation  that  I 
shall  transmit  to  him  the  government  of  the  colony, 
when  its  affairs  are  in  a  better  condition  than  they  have 
ever  been."  It  is  impossible  not  to  sympathize  with 
the  deep  despondency  and  bitter  feeling  of  disappoint- 
ment expressed  in  this  dispatch  of  Bienville,  who  felt, 
no  doubt,  that  the  ties  which  for  more  than  forty  years 
had  connected  him  with  Louisiana,  the  joint  creation  of 
his  family  and  of  himself,  were  forever  to  be  severed. 
Who  has  not  met,  or  will  not  meet  the  day  when  he 
stood,  or  will  stand  up  in  desolation  like  Bienville, 
with  what  energy  he  may  summon  up  from  his  soul, 
amid  the  shivered  fragments  of  hereditary  affections, 
long-cherished  hopes,  and  deeply-laid  plans  of  fortune 
and  happiness,  which  were  the  very  household  gods  of 
his  heart?  Who?  But  why  philosophize?  It  has 
become  too  trite  and  commonplace. 

Although  waiting  for  his  successor,  and  governing 
the  country  only  ad  interim,  Bienville  was  not  the  less 
on  the  lookout  for  every  thing  that  could  be  turned  to 
the  profit  or  advantage  of  Louisiana.  On  the  15th  of 
June,  he  wrote  to  the  French  government,  jointly  with 
Salmon : — "  It  is  long  since  the  inhabitants  of  Louisiana 
made  representations  on  the  necessity  of  their  having  a 
college  for  the  education  of  their  children.  Convinced 
of  the  advantages  of  such  an  establishment,  they  invited 
the  Jesuits  to  undertake  its  creation  and  management. 
But  the  reverend  fathers  refused,  on  the  ground  that 
they  had  no  lodgings  suited  for  the  purpose,  and  had 
not  the  necessary  materials  to  support  such  an  iustitu- 


522       APPEAL  FOR  THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  A  COLLEGE. 

tion.  Yet  it  is  essential  that  there  be  one,  at  least  for 
the  study  of  the  classics,  of  geometry,  geography,  pilot- 
age, <fcc.  There,  the  youths  of  the  colony  would  be 
taught  the  knowledge  of  religion,  which  is  the  basis  of 
morality.  It  is  but  too  evidently  demonstrated  to  pa- 
rents, how  utterly  worthless  turn  out  to  be  those  chil- 
dren, who  are  raised  in  idleness  and  luxury,  and  how 
ruinously  expensive  it  is  for  those  who  send  their  chil- 
dren to  France  to  be  educated.  It  is  even  to  be  feared 
from  this  circumstance,  that  the  Creoles,  thus  educated 
abroad,  will  imbibe  a  dislike  to  their  native  country, 
and  will  come  back  to  it  only  to  receive  and  to  convert 
into  cash  what  property  may  be  left  to  them  by  their 
parents.  Many  persons  in  Vera  Cruz  would  rejoice  at 
having  a  college  here,  and  would  send  to  it  their  chil- 
dren." 

This  joint  application  of  Bienville  and  Salmon  for  a 
college  was  set  aside  on  the  ground  that  the  colony  was 
too  unimportant  for  such  an  establishment.  Strange  to 
say,  Louisiana  has  ever  since  suffered,  through  more 
than  a  century,  from  the  difficulty  of  educating  her  na- 
tive population  within  her  own  limits ;  and  to  this  day, 
we  may  regret  with  Bienville,  that  so  large  a  number 
of  Louisianians  are  yearly  sent  away  to  distant  colleges, 
in  countries  from  which  they  return,  perhaps  with  a 
distaste  for  what  awaits  them  under  the  paternal  roof, 
and  often  with  a  much  less  keen  sense  of  patriotism  and 
of  state  pride.  Nor  is  it  astonishing  if,  after  a  long  ab- 
sence, their  whole  organization  requires  to  be  morally 
and  bodily  modified  to  suit  the  climate  of  our  southern 
latitude  and  the  atmosphere  of  our  peculiar  institutions, 
ideas,  feelings,  and  manners.  Fortunately,  the  legisla- 
ture of  the  state  is  gradually  preparing  a  remedy  for 
this  evil. 

The  year  1742  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  the  col- 


CLOSE  OF  THE  TEAR  1742.  523 

ony  would  have  enjoyed  perfect  tranquillity,  if  it  had 
not  been  somewhat  disturbed  by  the  war  of  the  Chick- 
asaws  and  of  the  Choctaws.  However,  the  Chickasaws 
had  lately  suffered  so  much  from  the  incessant  attacks 
of  the  Choctaws,  that  many  of  them  were  seeking  for 
an  asylum  in  Carolina,  and  it  was  hoped  that  Louisiana 
would  soon  be  rid  of  that  turbulent  race.  But  some 
fears  of  an  attack  from  a  more  powerful  foe  were  ex- 
cited by  the  circumstance  of  some  Englishmen  being 
found  on  the  Mississippi,  in  the  Illinois  district,  and  of 
others  being  arreste^  about  one  hundred  and  twenty 
miles  above  Natchez.  As  it  was  supposed  that  English- 
men could  not  have  come  to  Louisiana  with  good  inten- 
tions, those  who  were  made  prisoners  in  the  Illinois  dis- 
trict were  sentenced,  some  to  three,  and  some  to  five 
years'  imprisonment ;  and  with  regard  to  those  who  were 
caught  near  Natchez,  in  small  bark  canoes,  and  who 
were  five  in  number,  Bienville  wrote  that  they  were 
spies  from  Virginia,  "  They  shall  be  tried,"  said  he, 
"  and  I  shall  endeavor  that  they  be  sent  to  the  mines 
of  New  Mexico." 

The  French  were  then  on  very  good  terms  with  the 
Spaniards,  and  Bienville  informed  the  French  govern- 
ment that  the  Audiencia  Real,  or  supreme  royal  tribu- 
nal, which,  at  that  time,  governed  ad  interim,  the  prov- 
inces of  Mexico,  having  received  intelligence  that  the 
English,  under  Admiral  Vernon,  meditated  an  attack 
against  Vera  Cruz,  had  applied  to  him  to  obtain  six 
eighteen  pounders,  and  that,  in  concert  with  the  com- 
missary, Salmon,  he  had  granted  them  the  assistance 
demanded. 

The  current  expenses  of  the  colony  for  the  year  1742, 
amounted  to  322,629  livres. 

The  Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  the  successor  of  Bienville, 
arrived  at  New  Orleans,  on  the  10th  of  May,  1743,  and 


524  BIENVILLE  DEPARTS  FOR  FRANCE. 

Bienville  departed  for  France,  never  to  return  to  the 
colony,  although  his  life  was  prolonged  twenty-five 
years.  When  he  left  Louisiana,  he  had  reached  the 
age  of  sixty-five,  and  he  carried  away  with  him  the  re- 
grets, the  esteem,  and  the  affections  of  all  the  colonists, 
who  called  him  the  father  of  the  country.  With  it,  as  an 
object  of  his  creation,  he  was  naturally  identified,  and 
he  loved  it  with  all  the  fervor  of  the  parental  heart. 
Hence  did  he,  perhaps,  think  himself  possessed  of  a 
prescriptive  right  to  its  administration,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  he  looked  with  a  jealous  eye  on  all 
that  interfered  with  this  right.  The  fact  is,  that  ill  did 
he  seem  to  brook  any  authority  set  over  him ;  and  who 
is  he  who  will  fling  the  first  stone  and  say  that,  in  Bien- 
ville's  place,  he  is  sure  he  could  have  felt  and  acted  dif- 
ferently ?  Bienville  deservedly  exercised  great  influence 
in  the  country,  which  had  been  settled  under  his  aus- 
pices and  patronage,  and  which  was  full  of  Canadians 
like  himself,  of  his  numerous  friends  and  dependents, 
kinsmen  and  family  connections.  When  in  opposition 
he  must  have  been  able  to  do  much,  either  directly  or 
indirectly.  To  the  fear  of  this  power  which  he  pos- 
sessed, must  be  ascribed  his  recall  to  France,  and  his 
detention  there  for  ten  years,  when  Perier  was  appointed 
governor  in  1726.  Hence,  also,  the  removal  from  of- 
fice, at  that  time,  of  all  his  friends,  and  of  all  the  mem- 
bers of  his  family.  At  a  later  period,  to  him,  or  if  he 
remained  passive  himself,  to  the  ill-will  of  his  creatures, 
whom  he  did  not  exert  himself  to  check,  must  be  attrib- 
uted the  failure  of  the  expedition  against  the  Chicka- 
saws,  under  De  Noailles,  in  1739.  At  least,  all  appearan- 
ces and  a  whole  concourse  of  circumstances  combine  to 
impress  this  belief  upon  the  mind  of  the  historian.  Bien- 
ville himself,  feeling  at  a  loss  how  to  present  his  justifi- 
cation in  a  favorable  light,  and  to  rebut  the  presump- 


HIS  CHARACTER.  525 

tions  and  all  the  circumstantial  evidence  which  rose  in 
testimony  against  him,  was  obliged,  as  he  did  in  his  dis- 
patch of  the  26th  of  March,  1742,  to  have  recourse  to 
fatality,  and  to  attribute  his  misfortunes  to  this  stern 
and  omnipotent  cause.  With  the  exception  of  this  sin- 
gle blemish,  his  career  is  one  of  unsullied  purity  and  of 
continual  usefulness.  A  man  of  undoubted  integrity,  a 
strict  observer  of  his  word,  punctilious  as  a  knight-er- 
rant as  to  his  honor  and  fair  fame,  devotedly  attached 
to  his  country  and  to  his  king,  true,  heart  and  soul,  to 
his  friends,  to  his  kinsmen  and  family  connections,  bland 
and  courteous  in  his  manners,  humane  and  generous, 
possessing  a  highly  gifted  personal  appearance,  having 
all  the  distinction  inherent  to  a  man  of  refined  and  ele- 
gant tastes,  he  retained  that  air  of  grandeur  so  peculiar 
to  the  age  of  Louis  XlVth,  which  had  closed  when  he 
had  already  reached  manhood,  being  over  thirty  years 
old  when  the  grand  monarch  died.  With  all  these 
qualifications,  he  might  have  been  set  up  as  a  faithful 
representation  of  the  gentlemen  of  that  time.  When 
he  left  Louisiana  forever,  although  he  was  under  the 
displeasure  of  the  court,  the  colonists  were  loud  in  ex- 
pressing their  regrets ;  and  whatever  faults,  inseparable, 
perhaps,  from  human  nature,  he  may  have  committed, 
his  popularity  in  the  province  where  he  had  lived  to 
old  age,  had  never  been  shaken,  and  he  certainly  was 
one  of  the  most  honorable  and  striking  characters  of 
the  primordial  history  of  Louisiana. 

Among  the  other  most  conspicuous  names  in  the  an- 
nals of  Louisiana,  is  that  of  D'Artaguette,  which  disap- 
pears, however,  at  the  same  time  when  Bienville  retires 
from  the  colony.  The  royal  commissary  of  that  name, 
who  came  to  Louisiana  in  1*708,  and  who  filled  in  it 
several  high  offices  until  1742,  left  behind  him  a  long 
memory,  which  made  his  virtues,  his  talents,  and  his 


526  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  D'ARTAGUETTE. 

deeds,  familiar  to  several  succeeding  generations ;  and 
the  melancholy  fate  of  Ms  younger  brother,  D'Arta- 
guette,  the  brilliant  officer  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Chickasaws,  after  a  desperate  battle,  and  who  was  burn- 
ed by  them  at  the  stake,  had,  it  seems,  made  such  a  deep 
impression  in  the  country,  that  the  name  of  these  two 
men  had  remained  almost  a  household  word  in  every 
family.  It  may  be  in  the  recollection  of  many  that,  as 
late  as  1815,  gangs  of  negroes,  when  at  work  in  the 
fields,  sang,  among  the  many  songs  with  which  they  en- 
livened their  labors,  one  of  which  the  often  repeated 
burden  was,  if  spelt  in  French,  as  pronounced : — 

"  Di  terns  missie  d'Artaguette, 

H6!    Ho!    He! 
C'etait,  c'etait  bon  terns. 
Ye  te  menin  monde  a  la  baguette. 

He!    Ho!    He! 
Pas  negres,  pas  rubans 
Pas  diumans 
Pour  dochans. 
He!    Ho!    He!" 

which  means : — 

"  In  the  days  of  D'Artaguette, 

He!    Ho!    He! 
It  was  the  good  old  time. 
The  world  was  led  straight  with  a  switch, 

He!     Ho!     He! 

Then  there  were  no  negroes,  no  ribbons, 
No  diamonds 
For  the  vulgar. 
He!    Ho!    He!" 

It  was  also  customary  to  say,  when  alluding  to  any 
thing  antiquated,  or  out  of  fashion,  "  This  is  as  old  as 
D'Artaguette,"  instead  of"  This  is  as  old  as  Methusalem." 
It  seems  that  this  name,  connected  no  doubt  with  the 


CONCLUSION.  527 

floating  recollections  of  by-gone  events,  had  taken  hold 
of  the  imagination,  even  of  the  most  ignorant  class  of 
our  population. 

But  with  the  coming  of  new  generations,  the  old 
ditties  have  ceased,  the  quaint  colonial  expressions  have 
fallen  into  disuse,  and  the  weeds  of  oblivion  are  daily 
creeping  over  and  concealing  the  vestiges  of  the  past 
and  those  traditions  which  were  the  impresses  of  the 
footsteps  of  time  ;  while  the  hand  of  neglect  destroys,  or 
allows  to  perish,  those  private  and  public  manuscripts, 
which,  like  fossil  bones  in  the  hands  of  the  geologist, 
might  have  helped  the  historian  in  recomposing  the 
frame  and  physiognomy  of  Louisiana,  when  breathing  a 
colonial  life. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDII, 


BLACK  CODE. 

ART.  1, 
Decrees  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  the  colony. 

ART.  2, 

Makes  it  imperative  on  masters  to  impart  religious  instructions  to  their 
slaves. 

ART.  3, 

Permits  the  exercise  of  the  Roman  Catholic  creed  only.  Every  other 
mode  of  worship  is  prohibited. 

ART.  4. 

Negroes  placed  under  the  direction  or  supervision  of  any  other  person 
than  a  Catholic,  are  liable  to  confiscation. 

ART.  5. 

Sundays  and  holydays  are  to  be  strictly  observed.  All  negroes  found 
at  work  on  these  days  are  to  be  confiscated. 

ART.  6. 

We  forbid  our  white  subjects,  of  both  sexes,  to  marry  with  the  blacks, 
under  the  penalty  of  being  fined  and  subjected  to  some  other  arbitrary 
punishment.  We  forbid  all  curates,  priests,  or  missionaries  of  our  secular 
or  regular  clergy,  and  even  our  chaplains  in  our  navy,  to  sanction  such 
marriages.  We  also  forbid  all  our  white  subjects,  and  even  the  manu- 
mitted or  free-born  blacks,  to  live  in  a  state  of  concubinage  with  slaves. 
Should  there  be  any  issue  from  this  kind  of  intercourse,  it  is  our  will  that 


532  APPENDIX. 

the  person  so  offending,  and  the  master  of  the  slave,  should  pay  each  a 
fine  of  three  hundred  livres.  Should  said  issue  be  the  result  of  the  con- 
cubinage of  the  master  with  his  slave,  said  master  shall  not  only  pay  the 
fine,  but  be  deprived  of  the  slave  and  of  the  children,  who  shall  be  ad- 
judged to  the  hospital  of  the  locality,  and  said  slaves  shall  be  forever  in- 
capable of  being  set  free.  But  should  this  illicit  intercourse  have  existed 
between  a  free  black  and  his  slave,  when  said  free  black  had  no  legiti- 
mate wife,  and  should  said  black  marry  said  slave  according  to  the  forms 
prescribed  by  the  church,  said  slave  shall  be  thereby  set  free,  and  the 
children  shall  also  become  free  and  legitimate ;  and  in  such  a  case,  there 
shall  be  no  application  of  the  penalties  mentioned  in  the  present  article. 

ART.  7. 

The  ceremonies  and  forms  prescribed  by  the  ordinance  of  Blois,  and  by 
the  edict  of  1639,  for  marriages,  shall  be  observed  both  with  regard  to 
free  persons  and  to  slaves.  But  the  consent  of  the  father  and  mother  of 
the  slave  is  not  necessary ;  that  of  the  master  shall  be  the  only  one  re- 
quired. 

ART.  8. 

We  forbid  all  curates  to  proceed  to  effect  marriages  between  slaves 
without  proof  of  the  consent  of  their  masters ;  and  we  also  forbid  all 
masters  to  force  their  slaves  into  any  marriage  against  their  will. 

ART.  9. 

Children,  issued  from  the  marriage  of  slaves,  shall  follow  the  condition 
of  their  parents,  and  shall  belong  to  the  master  of  the  wife  and  not  of  the 
husband,  if  the  husband  and  wife  have  different  masters. 

ART.  10. 

If  the  husband  be  a  slave,  and  the  wife  a  free  woman,  it  is  our  will 
that  their  children,  of  whatever  sex  they  may  be,  shall  share  the  condi- 
tion of  their  mother,  and  be  as  free  as  she,  notwithstanding  the  servitude 
of  their  father ;  and  if  the  father  be  free  and  the  mother  a  slave,  the  chil- 
dren shall  all  be  slaves. 

ART.  11. 

Masters  shall  have  their  Christian  slaves  buried  in  consecrated  ground. 

ART.  12. 

We  forbid  slaves  to  carry  offensive  weapons  or  heavy  sticks,  under  the 
penalty  of  being  whipped,  and  of  having  said  weapons  confiscated  for  the 


APPENDIX.  533 

benefit  of  the  person  seizing  the  same.  An  exception  is  made  in  favor  of 
those  slaves  who  are  sent  a  hunting  or  a  shooting  by  their  masters,  and 
who  carry  with  them  a  written  permission  to  that  effect,  or  are  desig- 
nated by  some  known  mark  or  badge. 

ART.  13. 

We  forbid  slaves  belonging  to  different  masters  to  gather  in  crowds 
either  by  day  or  by  night,  under  the  pretext  of  a  wedding,  or  for  any 
other  cause,  either  at  the  dwelling  or  on  the  grounds  of  one  of  their  mas- 
ters, or  elsewhere,  and  much  less  on  the  highways  or  in  secluded  places, 
under  the  penalty  of  corporal  punishment,  which  shall  not  be  less  than 
the  whip.  In  case  of  frequent  offenses  of  the  kind,  the  offenders  shall  be 
branded  with  the  mark  of  the  flower  cle  luce,  and  should  there  be  aggra- 
vating circumstances,  capital  punishment  may  be  applied,  at  the  discre- 
tion of  our  judges.  We  command  all  our  subjects,  be  they  officers  or 
not,  to  seize  all  such  offenders,  to  arrest  and  conduct  them  to  prison,  al- 
though there  should  be  no  judgment  against  them. 

AUT.  14. 

Masters  who  shall  be  convicted  of  having  permitted  or  tolerated  such 
gatherings  as  aforesaid,  composed  of  other  slaves  than  their  own,  shall  be 
sentenced,  individually,  to  indemnify  their  neighbors  for  the  damages 
occasioned  by  said  gatherings,  and  to  pay,  for  the  first  time,  a  fine  of 
thirty  livres,  and  double  that  sum  on  the  repetition  of  the  offense. 

ART.  15. 

We  forbid  negroes  to  sell  any  commodities,  provisions,  or  produce  of 
any  kind,  without  the  written  permission  of  their  masters,  or  without 
wearing  their  known  marks  or  badges,  and  any  persons  purchasing  any 
thing  from  negroes  in  violation  of  this  article,  shall  be  sentenced  to  pay  a 
fine  of  1500  livres. 

ART.  16,  17,  18,  19, 
Provide  at  length  for  the  clothing  of  slaves  and  for  their  subsistence. 

ART.  20. 

Slaves  who  shall  not  be  properly  fed,  clad,  and  provided  for  by  their 
masters,  may  give  information  thereof  to  the  attorney-general  of  the  Su- 
perior Council,  or  to  all  the  other  officers  of  justice  of  an  inferior  jurisdic- 
tion, and  may  put  the  written  exposition  of  their  wrongs  into  their  hands ; 


534  APPENDIX. 

upon  which  information,  and  even  ex  officio,  should  the  information  come 
from  another  quarter,  the  attorney-general  shall  prosecute  said  masters 
without  charging  any  costs  to  the  complainants.  It  is  our  will  that  this 
regulation  be  observed  in  all  accusations  for  crimes  or  barbarous  and  in- 
human treatment  brought  by  slaves  against  their  masters. 

ART.  21. 

Slaves  who  are  disabled  from  working,  either  by  old  age,  disease,  or 
otherwise,  be  the  disease  incurable  or  not,  shall  be  fed  and  provided  for 
by  their  masters ;  and  in  case  they  should  have  been  abandoned  by  said 
masters,  said  slaves  shall  be  adjudged  to  the  nearest  hospital,  to  which 
said  masters  shall  be  obliged  to  pay  eight  cents  a  day  for  the  food  and 
maintenance  of  each  one  of  these  slaves ;  and  for  the  payment  of  this 
sum,  said  hospital  shall  have  a  lien  on  the  plantations  of  the  master. 

ART.  22. 

We  declare  that  slaves  can  have  no  right  to  any  kind  of  property,  and 
that  all  that  they  acquire  either  by  their  own  industry,  or  by  the  liberal- 
ity of  others,  or  by  any  other  means  or  title  whatever,  shall  be  the  full 
property  of  their  masters ;  and  the  children  of  said  slaves,  their  fathers 
and  mothers,  their  kindred  or  other  relations,  either  free  or  slaves,  shall 
have  no  pretensions  or  claims  thereto,  either  through  testamentary  dis- 
positions or  donations  inter  vivos ;  which  dispositions  and  donations  we 
declare  null  and  void,  and  also  whatever  promises  they  may  have  made, 
or  whatever  obligations  they  may  have  subscribed  to,"  as  having  been  en- 
tered into  by  persons  incapable  of  disposing  of  any  thing,  and  of  partici- 
pating to  any  contract 

ART.  23. 

Masters  shall  be  responsible  for  what  their  slaves  have  done  by  their 
command,  and  also  for  what  transactions  they  have  permitted  their 
slaves  to  do  in  their  shops,  in  the  particular  line  of  commerce  with  which 
they  were  intrusted ;  and  in  case  said  slaves  should  have  acted  without 
the  order  or  authorization  of  their  masters,  said  masters  shall  be  responsi- 
ble only  for  so  much  as  has  turned  to  their  profit ;  and  if  said  masters 
have  not  profited  by  the  doing  or  transaction  of  their  slaves,  the  peculium 
which  the  masters  have  permitted  the  slaves  to  own,  shall  be  subjected  to 
all  claims  against  said  slaves,  after  deduction  made  by  the  masters  of 
what  may  be  due  to  them  ;  and  if  said  peculium  should  consist,  in  whole 
or  in  part,  of  merchandises  in  which  the  slaves  had  permission  to  traffic, 
the  masters  shall  only  come  in  for  their  share  in  common  with  the  other 
creditors. 


APPENDIX.  535 

ART.  24. 

Slaves  shall  be  incapable  of  all  public  functions,  and  of  being  consti- 
tuted agents  for  any  other  person  than  their  own  masters,  with  powers  to 
manage  or  conduct  any  kind  of  trade  ;  nor  can  they  serve  as  arbitrators 
or  experts ;  nor  shall  they  be  called  to  give  their  testimony  either  in  civil 
or  in  criminal  cases,  except  when  it  shall  be  a  matter  of  necessity,  and 
only  in  default  of  white  people ;  but  in  no  case  shall  they  be  permitted 
to  serve  as  witnesses  either  for  or  against  their  masters. 

ART.  25. 

Slaves  shall  never  be  parties  to  civil  suits,  either  as  plaintiffs  or  defend- 
ants, nor  shall  they  be  allowed  to  appear  as  complainants  in  criminal 
cases,  but  their  masters  shall  have  the  right  to  act  for  them  in  civil  mat- 
ters, and  in  criminal  ones,  to  demand  punishment  and  reparation  for  such 
outrages  and  excesses  as  their  slaves  may  have  suffered  from. 

ART.  26. 

Slaves  may  be  prosecuted  criminally,  without  their  masters  being  made 
parties  to  the  trial,  except  they  should  be  indicted  as  accomplices ;  and 
said  slaves  shall  be  tried,  at  first,  by  the  judges  of  ordinary  jurisdiction, 
if  there  be  any,  and  on  appeal,  by  the  Superior  Council,  with  the  same 
rules,  formalities,  and  proceedings  observed  for  free  persons,  save  the  ex- 
ceptions mentioned  hereafter. 

ART.  27. 

The  slave  who,  having  struck  his  master,  his  mistress,  or  the  husband 
of  his  mistress,  or  their  children,  shall  have  produced  a  bruise,  or  the 
shedding  of  blood  in  the  face,  shall  suffer  capital  punishment. 

ART.  28. 

With  regard  to  outrages  or  acts  of  violence  committed  by  slaves  against 
free  persons,  it  is  our  will  that  they  be  punished  with  severity,  and  even 
with  death,  should  the  case  require  it. 

ART.  29. 

Thefts  of  importance,  and  even  the  stealing  of  horses,  mares,  mules, 
oxen,  or  cows,  when  executed  by  slaves  or  manumitted  persons,  shall 
make  the  offender  liable  to  corporal,  and  even  to  capital  punishment,  ac- 
cording to  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 


536  APPENDIX. 

ART.  30. 

The  stealing  of  sheep,  goats,  hogs,  poultry,  grain,  fodder,  peas,  beans, 
or  other  vegetables,  produce,  or  provisions,  when  committed  by  slaves, 
shall  be  punished  according  to  the  circumstances  of  the  case ;  and  the 
judges  may  sentence  them,  if  necessary,  to  be  whipped  by  the  public  ex- 
ecutioner,  and  branded  with  the  mark  of  the  flower  de  luce. 

ART.  31. 

In  cases  of  thefts  committed  or  damages  done  by  their  slaves,  masters, 
besides  the  corporal  punishment  inflicted  on  their  slaves,  shall  be  bound  to 
make  amends  for  the  injuries  resulting  from  the  acts  of  said  slaves,  unless 
they  prefer  abandoning  them  to  the  sufferer.  They  shall  be  bound  to 
make  this  choice  in  three  days  from  the  time  of  the  conviction  of  the 
negroes ;  if  not,  this  privilege  shall  be  forever  forfeited. 

ART.  32. 

The  runaway  slave,  who  shall  continue  to  be  so  for  one  month  from  the 
day  of  his  being  denounced  to  the  officers  of  justice,  shall  have  his  ears  cut 
off",  and  shall  be  branded  with  the  flower  de  luce  on  the  shoulder :  and  on 
a  second  offense  of  the  same  nature,  persisted  in  during  one  month  from 
the  day  of  his  being  denounced,  he  shall  be  hamstrung,  and  be  marked 
with  the  flower  de  luce  on  the  other  shoulder.  On  the  third  offense,  he 
shall  suffer  death. 

ART.  33. 

Slaves  who  shall  have  made  themselves  liable  to  the  penalty  of  the 
whip,  the  flower  de  luce  brand,  and  ear  cutting,  shall  be  tried,  in  the  last 
resort,  by  the  ordinary  judges  of  the  inferior  courts,  and  shall  undergo  the 
sentence  passed  upon  them  without  there  being  an  appeal  to  the  Superior 
Council,  in  confirmation  or  reversal  of  judgment,  notwithstanding  the  arti- 
cle 26th  of  the  present  code,  which  shall  be  applicable  only  to  those  judg- 
ments in  which  the  slave  convicted  is  sentenced  to  be  hamstrung  or  to 
suffer  death. 

ART.  34. 

Freed  or  free-born  negroes,  who  shall  have  afforded  refuge  in  their 
houses  to  fugitive  slaves,  shall  be  sentenced  to  pay  to  the  masters  of  said 
slaves,  the  sum  of  thirty  livres  a  day  for  every  day  during  which  they 
shall  have  concealed  said  fugitives ;  and  all  other  free  persons,  guilty  of 
the  same  offense,  shall  pay  a  fine  of  ten  livres  a  clay  as  aforesaid ;  and 
should  the  freed  or  free-born  negroes  not  be  able  to  pay  the  fine  herein 


APPENDIX.  537 

specified,  they  shall  be  reduced  to  the  condition  of  slaves,  and  be  sold  as 
such.  Should  the  price  of  the  sale  exceed  the  sura  mentioned  in  the 
judgment,  the  surplus  shall  be  delivered  to  the  hospital. 

ART.  35. 

We  permit  our  subjects  in  this  colony,  who  may  have  slaves  concealed 
in  any  place  whatever,  to  have  them  sought  after  by  such  persons  and  in 
such  a  way  as  they  may  deem  proper,  or  to  proceed  themselves  to  such 
researches  as  they  may  think  best. 

ART.  36. 

The  slave  who  is  sentenced  to  suffer  death  on  the  denunciation  of  his 
master,  shall,  when  that  master  is  not  an  accomplice  to  his  crime,  be  ap- 
praised before  his  execution  by  two  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  the  lo- 
cality, who  shall  be  specially  appointed  by  the  judge,  and  the  amount  of 
said  appraisement  shall  be  paid  to  the  master.  To  raise  this  sum,  a  pro- 
portional tax  shall  be  laid  on  every  slave,  and  shall  be  collected  by  the 
persons  invested  with  that  authority. 

ART.  37. 

We  forbid  all  the  officers  of  the  Superior  Council,  and  all  our  other 
officers  of  justice  in  this  colony,  to  take  any  fees  or  receive  any  perquisites 
in  criminal  suits  against  slaves,  under  the  penalty,  in  so  doing,  of  being 
dealt  with  as  guilty  of  extortion. 

ART.  38. 

We  also  forbid  all  our  subjects  in  this  colony,  whatever  their  condition 
or  rank  may  be,  to  apply,  on  their  own  private  authority,  the  rack  to 
their  slaves,  under  any  pretense  whatever,  and  to  mutilate  said  slaves  in 
any  one  of  their  limbs,  or  in  any  part  of  their  bodies,  under  the  penalty 
of  the  confiscation  of  said  slaves  ;  and  said  masters,  so  offending,  shall  be 
liable  to  a  criminal  prosecution.  We  only  permit  masters,  when  they 
shall  think  that  the  case  requires  it,  to  put  their  slaves  in  irons,  and  to 
have  them  whipped  with  rods  or  ropes. 

ART.  39. 

We  command  our  officers  of  justice  in  this  colony  to  institute  criminal 
process  against  masters  and  overseers  who  shall  have  killed  or  mutilated 
their  slaves,  when  in  their  power  and  under  their  supervision,  and  to  pun- 
ish said  murder  according  to  the  atrocity  of  the  circumstances ;  and  in 


538  APPENDIX. 

case  the  offense  shall  be  a  pardonable  one,  we  permit  them  to  pardon 
said  masters  and  overseers  without  its  being  necessary  to  obtain  from  us 
letters  patent  of  pardon. 

ART.  40. 

Slaves  shall  be  held  in  law  as  movables,  and  as  such,  they  shall  be  part 
of  the  community  of  acquests  between  husband  and  wife ;  they  shall  not 
be  liable  to  be  seized  under  any  mortgage  whatever  ;  and  they  shall  be 
equally  divided  among  the  co-heirs  without  admitting  from  any  one  of 
said  heirs  any  claim  founded  on  preciput  or  right  of  primogeniture,  or 
dowry. 

ART.  41,  42. 
Are  entirely  relative  to  judicial  forms  and  proceedings. 

ART.  43. 

Husbands  and  wives  shall  not  be  seized  and  sold  separately  when  be- 
longing to  the  same  master;  and  their  children,  when  under  fourteen 
years  of  age,  shall  not  be  separated  from  their  parents,  and  such  seizures 
and  sales  shall  be  null  and  void.  The  present  article  shall  apply  to  vol- 
untary sales,  and  in  case  such  sales  should  take  place  in  violation  of  the 
law,  the  seller  shall  be  deprived  of  the  slave  he  has  illegally  retained,  and 
said  slave  shall  be  adjudged  to  the  purchaser  without  any  additional  price 


ART.  44. 

Slaves,  fourteen  years  old,  and  from  this  age  up  to  sixty,  who  are  set- 
tled on  lands  and  plantations,  and  are  at  present  working  on  them,  shall 
not  be  liable  to  seizure  for  debt,  except  for  what  may  be  due  out  of  the 
purchase  money  agreed  to  be  paid  for  them,  unless  said  grounds  or  plan- 
tations should  also  be  distressed,  and  any  seizure  and  judicial  sale  of  a 
real  estate,  without  including  the  slaves  of  the  aforesaid  age  who  are  part 
of  said  estate,  shall  be  deemed  null  and  void. 

•  ART.  45,  46,  47,  48,  49, 
Are  relative  to  certain  formalities  to  be  observed  in  judicial  proceedings. 

ART.  50. 

Masters,  when  twenty-five  years  old,  shall  have  the  power  to  manumit 
their  slaves,  either  by  testamentary  dispositions,  or  by  acts  inter  vivos. 
But,  as  there  may  be  mercenary  masters  disposed  to  set  a  price  on  the 
liberation  of  their  slaves ;  and  whereas  slaves,  with  a  view  to  acquire  the 


APPENDIX.  539 

necessary  means  to  purchase  their  freedom,  may  be  tempted  to  commit 
theft  or  deeds  of  plunder,  no  person,  whatever  may  be  his  rank  and  con- 
dition, shall  be  permitted  to  set  free  his  slaves,  without  obtaining  from 
the  Superior  Council  a  decree  of  permission  to  that  effect ;  which  permis- 
sion shall  be  granted  without  costs,  when  the  motives  for  the  setting  free 
of  said  slaves,  as  specified  in  the  petition  of  the  master,  shall  appear 
legitimate  to  the  tribunal.  All  future  acts  for  the  emancipation  of 
slaves,  which  may  be  made  without  this  permission,  shall  be  null ;  and 
the  slaves  so  freed  shall  not  be  entitled  to  their  freedom ;  they  shall,  on 
the  contrary,  continue  to  be  held  as  slaves ;  but  they  shall  be  taken  away 
from  their  former  masters,  and  confiscated  for  the  benefit  of  the  India 
Company. 

ART.  51. 

However,  should  slaves  be  appointed  by  their  masters  tutors  to  their 
children,  said  slaves  shall  be  held  and  regarded  as  being  thereby  set  free 
to  all  intents  and  purposes. 

ART.  52. 

We  declare  that  the  acts  for  the  enfranchisement  of  slaves,  passed  ac- 
cording to  the  forms  above  described,  shall  be  equivalent  to  an  act  of 
naturalization,  when  said  slaves  are  not  born  in  our  colony  of  Louisiana, 
and  they  shall  enjoy  all  the  rights  and  privileges  inherent  to  our  subjects 
born  in  our  kingdom,  or  in  any  land  or  country  under  our  dominion. 
We  declare,  however,  that  all  manumitted  slaves,  and  all  free-born  ne- 
groes, are  incapable  of  receiving  donations,  either  by  testamentary  dispo- 
sitions, or  by  acts  inter  vivos  from  the  whites.  Said  donations  shall  be 
null  and  void,  and  the  objects  so  donated  shall  be  applied  to  the  benefit 
of  the  nearest  hospital. 

ART.  53. 

We  command  all  manumitted  slaves  to  show  the  profoundest  respect 
to  their  former  masters,  to  their  widows  and  children,  and  any  injury  or  in- 
sult offered  by  said  manumitted  slaves  to  their  former  masters,  their  wid- 
ows or  children,  shall  be  punished  with  more  seventy  than  if  it  had  been 
offered  to  any  other  person.  We,  however,  declare  them  exempt  from 
the  discharge  of  all  duties  or  services,  and  from  the  payment  of  all  taxes 
or  fees,  or  any  thing  else  which  their  former  masters  might,  in  their  qual- 
ity of  patrons,  claim  either  in  relation  to  their  persons,  or  to  their  persona! 
or  real  estate,  either  during  the  life  or  after  the  death  of  said  manumitted 
slaves. 


540  APPENDIX. 

ART.  54. 

We  grant  to  manumitted  slaves  the  same  rights,  privileges,  and  immu- 
nities which  are  enjoyed  by  free-born  persons.  It  is  our  pleasure  that 
their  merit  in  having  acquired  their  freedom,  shall  produce  in  their  favor, 
not  only  with  regard  to  their  persons,  but  also  to  their  property,  the  same 
effects  which  our  other  subjects  derive  from  the  happy  circumstance  of 
their  having  been  born  free. 

In  the  name  of  the  king. 

BlENVILLE,  DK  LA  CHAISI. 

Fazende,  Brusl6,  Perry,  ) 
March,  1724. 


THE    END. 


V 


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